title: Immediate local and regional recurrence after the excision of a polypoid melanoma: tumor dormancy or tumor activation?
abstract: Recurrent melanoma occurs in approximately one third of the patients who are treated for cutaneous melanoma. Although the majority of recurrences occur within the first few years of primary therapy, a significant number remain at risk beyond 10 years. Tumor dormancy provides the conceptual framework to explain a prolonged quiescent state in which tumor cells are present, but tumor progression is not clinically apparent. Surgery, or other perturbing factors, might modulate the transition of dormant cancer cells to rapidly growing ones. These may be due to a perturbation of the mechanisms of tumor regulation such as local immunity or angiogenesis. Here, the case of a woman is discussed in whom the surgical removal of a polypoid melanoma was followed, in less than a month, by local recurrence and locoregional lymph nodal metastases, which were previously clinically absent.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy. vdegi@tin.it
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: De Giorgi
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Massi
authors.forename: Gianni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gerlini
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mannone
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Quercioli
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Carli
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D013997:Time Factors