title: Early recognition of primary cutaneous melanoma.
abstract: The rising incidence of this once uniformly lethal disease presents a special challenge to the primary physician--how to distinguish early, surgically curable melanoma from benign pigmented lesions. Simple visual criteria can identify more than 90% of the primary melanomas among suspected lesions. And treatment at the superficially invasive stage carries a 95% five-year survival rate.
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008544:Melanocytes / Q000473:pathology; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D009506:Nevus / Q000473:pathology; D011230:Precancerous Conditions / Q000473:pathology; D011379:Prognosis; D012306:Risk; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D012880:Skin Pigmentation