Clinical Guidelines For The Staging, Diagnosis, and Management Of Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma

Cutaneous melanoma is the fifth most common cancer diagnosis in the United States, and the incidence continues to increase with a projected 110000 new cases in the year 2030 compared to around 65000 new cases in 2011. Around 84% of the cases present with localized disease, 9% with involvement of regional lymph nodes, and 4% present with distant metastases at diagnosis. Evidence-based clinical guidelines from different professional societies are available to aid in the accurate diagnosis and management of malignant melanoma. In this article, we review the staging of cutaneous malignant melanoma and provide a summary of the clinical guidelines from the American Association of Dermatology (AAD), European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), and Cancer Council Australia for the management of cutaneous malignant melanoma. All the clinical guidelines adopt clinical staging based on the eighth edition of Tumor, Node, Metastases (TNM) staging of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC). AAD guidelines apply to clinical stage 0 to stage IIC and were last updated in January 2019. ESMO, NCCN guidelines apply to all stages of cutaneous malignant melanoma. ESMO guidelines were last updated in December 2019, NCCN guidelines are continuously updated, while Australian guidelines were last updated in July 2020.