Pre-operative ultrasound with a 12-15 MHz linear probe reliably differentiates between melanoma thicker and thinner than 1 mm.
BACKGROUND
Pre-operative determination of primary melanoma thickness could be a tool to identify those patients who could be treated with radical primary tumour excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy in a single procedure. An excellent correlation between sonographic and histological measurement of maximal tumour thickness has been achieved using 20-MHz transducers.


OBJECTIVE
To show that widely available high resolution ultrasound with 12-15 MHz linear probe could also reliably assess the thickness of primary melanoma.


METHODS
Sixty-nine patients underwent ultrasound evaluation of 70 clinically and dermoscopically suspicious pigmented skin lesions before surgical excision.


RESULTS
The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of ultrasound to detect melanoma > 1 mm were 92%, 92%, 95% and 81% respectively. The correlation between ultrasound and histological tumour thickness was very good [Pearson's correlating index 0.823 (P < 0.001)]. Mean difference between sonographic and histological measurements was 0.045 mm with limits of agreement estimated at -1.4 and +1.49, and a bias between two methods 45 microm.


CONCLUSIONS
Ultrasound examination with a 12-15 MHz linear transducer can reliably differentiate primary melanoma > 1 mm from those <or= 1 mm.
Department of Radiology, Institute of Oncology, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
M M
MM
Music
K
K
Hertl
M
M
Kadivec
M D
MD
Pavlović
M
M
Hocevar
D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D014463:Ultrasonography