title: Single institution experience of paediatric melanoma in Victoria, Australia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Paediatric melanoma is an uncommon presentation of melanoma that accounts for 3% of all paediatric cancers. The objective was to describe a series of paediatric melanoma cases presenting to a state-wide tertiary referral service over the past 19 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  A search of the Victorian Melanoma Service database was performed to identify all patients under the age of 20 years diagnosed with melanoma from 1994 to 2013. Histological, demographic and phenotypical information for each patient was collected. Patients were matched against the Victorian Death Registry to identify those who had died. Fisher's exact test was used to examine associations. Melanoma-specific survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 65 paediatric melanoma patients were included for analysis, in whom 72.3% of melanomas were diagnosed when they were 16-19 years of age with a mean age at diagnosis of 16 years. The mean Breslow thickness was 1.4 mm. It was greatest (3.4 mm) in the youngest age group (< 12 years of age). Ten patients developed nodal metastatic disease, eight of which progressed to visceral metastatic disease. The 5-year melanoma-specific survival rate was 96.8%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first descriptive epidemiological study of paediatric melanoma in Victoria. Further large, population-based, multi-institutional studies of paediatric melanoma are warranted to provide a clearer understanding of this group of melanoma patients.
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Quynh
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Norris
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.|Department of Anatomical Pathology, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.|Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Catriona A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: McClean
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Myra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mcguiness
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Rowena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Meani
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.|Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: John W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.affiliation: Victorian Melanoma Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000401:mortality* / Q000556:secondary*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology*; D015996:Survival Rate; D014739:Victoria / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: melanoma; paediatric; survival