Epidemiology and prognosis of plantar melanoma in 62 Japanese patients over a 28-year period

Medial Plantar Fasciocutaneous Flap Reconstruction for Load-Bearing Foot Defects in Patients With Acral Melanoma

BACKGROUND

Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is a rare subtype of malignant melanoma that usually involves the weight-bearing plantar area. Plantar defect reconstruction has traditionally been performed with skin grafts or free flaps. This study examined the efficacy and safety of a medial plantar artery perforator flap (MPAPF) for plantar defect reconstruction after wide excision of an ALM.

METHOD

Twenty-five patients who underwent reconstruction with a MPAPF between 2011 and 2021 were enrolled in this study. The defects were classified into 6 plantar zones. Demographic and clinical data were retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTS

Reconstruction with medial plantar fasciocutaneous island flaps was performed in all cases, except for 4 patients who had lesions in forefoot, which required free medial plantar flaps. Defects in lateral and posterior heel were more likely to present with venous congestion and require longer healing times and revision surgery (P < 0.05). The average follow-up period was 49 months. Four and 5 patients developed local recurrence and distant metastasis, respectively. Four cases of hyperkeratosis and paresthesia were documented, but there were no cases of ulceration or wound dehiscence. None of the cases required secondary debulking procedures.

CONCLUSIONS

The MPAPF is safe and effective for plantar defect reconstruction among patients with ALM. Meticulous dissection and adequate tunneling are needed, particularly for defects in the lateral and posterior heel, to minimize flap congestion and revision operations.

Acral Lentiginous Melanoma: A United States Multi-Center Substage Survival Analysis

Background

Acral lentiginous melanoma is associated with worse survival than other subtypes of melanoma. Understanding prognostic factors for survival and recurrence can help better inform follow-up care.

Objectives

To analyze the clinicopathologic features, melanoma-specific survival, and recurrence-free survival by substage in a large, multi-institutional cohort of primary acral lentiginous melanoma patients.

Methods

Retrospective review of the United States Melanoma Consortium database, a multi-center prospectively collected database of acral lentiginous melanoma patients treated between January 2000 and December 2017.

Results

Of the 433 primary acral lentiginous melanoma patients identified (median [range] age: 66 [8–97] years; 53% female, 83% white), 66% presented with stage 0–2 disease and the median time of follow-up for the 392 patients included in the survival analysis was 32.5 months (range: 0–259). The 5-year melanoma-specific survivals by stage were 0 = 100%, I = 93.8%, II = 76.2%, III = 63.4%, IIIA = 80.8%, and IV = 0%. Thicker Breslow depth ((HR) = 1.13; 95% CI = 1.05–1.21; P < .001)) and positive nodal status ((HR) = 1.79; 95% CI = 1.00–3.22; P = .050)) were independent prognostic factors for melanoma-specific survival. Breslow depth ((HR = 1.13; 95% CI = 1.07–1.20; P < .001), and positive nodal status (HR = 2.12; 95% CI = 1.38–3.80; P = .001) were also prognostic factors for recurrence-free survival.

Conclusion

In this cohort of patients, acral lentiginous melanoma was associated with poor outcomes even in early stage disease, consistent with prior reports. Stage IIB and IIC disease were associated with particularly low melanoma-specific and recurrence-free survival. This suggests that studies investigating adjuvant therapies in stage II patients may be especially valuable in acral lentiginous melanoma patients.

Acral lentiginous melanoma-Population, treatment, and survival using the NCDB from 2004 to 2015

Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is a rare histological subtype of cutaneous malignant melanoma that typically presents on the palms and soles. To characterize the demographic and treatment characteristics of ALM, we used the National Cancer Database (NCDB) to describe a large multi-institutional cohort of ALM patients, consisting of 4,796 ALM patients from 2004 to 2015. ALM was more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage overall compared with non-ALM cutaneous melanomas, and more likely to be thicker, ulcerated, lymph node positive, and have lymphovascular invasion and positive margins. When stratified by stage, ALM had worse survival compared with non-ALM patients, most notably in stage III patients with 5-year survival of 47.5% versus 56.7%, respectively (p < .001). In ALM patients, older age, male sex, higher comorbidity burden, increased tumor thickness and ulceration, positive lymph nodes, and positive metastasis were independently associated with lower 5-year survival. Multimodality therapy, defined as surgery in addition to systemic therapy and/or radiation therapy, was associated with higher survival in stage III patients but not in other stages. These results call for further investigation into possible treatment intensification in the ALM population in the future.

BRAF, KIT, and NRAS Mutations of Acral Melanoma in White Patients

OBJECTIVES

Malignant acral melanoma (AM) is relatively infrequent in white patients. Molecular investigations have returned variable results regarding the mutational pattern. We sought to describe the mutation profile and clinicopathologic features of AM.

METHODS

We investigated BRAF, KIT, and NRAS mutational status in a series of 31 AM samples from white patients.

RESULTS

Nodular melanoma was the most common histopathologic subtype (48.4%), followed by acral lentiginous melanoma (25.8%) and superficial spreading melanoma (25.8%). BRAF, KIT, and NRAS mutational rates were 12.9%, 17.2%, and 30.0%, respectively. We observed significant associations between KIT mutational status and a thinner Breslow thickness compared with wild-type (WT) status (P = .002), NRAS mutation status and younger age compared with WT. In patients presenting at least one mutation, triple-WT patients presented metastases most frequently.

CONCLUSIONS

Although these data represent preliminary results, better knowledge of tumor biology and prognosis of AM can support the clinical approach and follow-up.

Surgical Management of Plantar Melanoma: A Retrospective Study in One Center

Cutaneous melanoma is a highly malignant skin tumor, and in China, the planta pedis is a commonly involved site. The sites of plantar melanomas are a challenge to reconstruct after wide excision. Our experience with surgical management of melanomas was based on the 4 different anatomic subunits of the planta pedis. From January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2016, 35 patients who had had plantar melanoma had undergone surgical treatment in our clinic. The tumor locations were as follows: the toe in 6, the ball of the foot in 5, the arch in 15, and the heel in 9. Surgical management involved extended resection of the tumor, repair of defects with skin grafts or flaps, and inguinal lymphadenectomy. The skin flaps included a residual toe flap, an anterograde or retrograde medial plantar flap, and a retrograde sural neurocutaneous vascular flap. Of the 35 cases of flaps and skin grafts, 33 (94.29%) survived, and the wounds had healed by first intention. After a follow-up period of 6 months to 7 years, 24 patients (68.57%) were free of local and systemic disease and 30 patients (85.71%) were ambulatory using shoes, and all the flaps and skin grafts showed a good appearance. The personalized surgical treatments we used for melanoma in the planta pedis resulted in overall satisfactory outcomes and adequate disease clearance, and allowed the patients to resume normal lives. The function of the foot was maintained or restored to the greatest possible degree, and the patients' quality of life improved postoperatively.

Acral melanoma: correlating the clinical presentation to the mutational status

Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is the most common type of malignant melanoma (MM) in Asians, Afro-Americans and Middle-Easterners. It represents 1.5-10% of all MM cases, being the most common histological type of MM arising on palms, soles and nail apparatus, which is more generically defined as acral MM. To date no risk factors have been officially established, however a history of trauma may be involved in the pathogenesis of acral MM. This shows heterogeneous clinical features and frequently presents with advanced stage and aggressive behavior, often as a result of misdiagnosis or delayed identification. Dermoscopy is helpful for an early diagnosis of ALM: the most characteristic dermoscopic patterns are the parallel ridge and the irregular diffuse pigmentation. On histopathology ALM displays a lentiginous growth pattern, with melanocytes arranged as solitary units along the basilar epidermis, without notable pagetoid growth in the early stage. Not all acral MMs present a lentiginous pattern: superficial spreading melanoma and nodular melanoma patterns are also possible. Novel studies investigating the biologic characteristics of acral MM reported variable results: the overall mutational rates ranged respectively between 8.5% and 23% for KIT, between 3.6% and 33.3% for BRAF and between 3% and 47% for NRAS in ALMs. Increasing attention has been recently given to other genes, such as telomerase reverse transcriptase, platelet-derived growth factor receptor alfa and cyclin D1. Larger molecular investigations urge to describe the molecular profile of acral MM, to allow the development of specific targeted therapies.

Clinical presentation of acral lentiginous melanoma: a descriptive study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Acral lentiginous melanomas -the melanomas most commonly found on the distal portions of the limbs- have usually reached more advanced stages than other types of melanoma when diagnosed. Our aim was to describe the clinical presentation of these tumors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Retrospective, descriptive, observational study of cases recorded in the database of the Instituto Valenciano de Oncología. In telephone interviews the patients answered a questionnaire on the presenting features of the lesion, on the presence of signs and symptoms included in the Glasgow 7-point checklist and the ABCDEs of melanoma, and on diagnostic delay attributable to patient or physician.

RESULTS

In the interviews with the 23 patients who responded to the questionnaire, we detected a diagnostic delay of more than 1 year attributable to the patient (delay in seeking care) in 30.4% of the cases. Diagnostic delay of more than 1 year attributable to the physician (failure to suspect the diagnosis) was identified in 20%. The most frequent reasons for consulting a physician about a lesion were changes in size, changes in color, bleeding, or failure to heal. In 20% of the cases the evaluating physician did not order histology for over a year.

CONCLUSIONS

Diagnostic delay is a significant problem in acral lentiginous melanoma and may be attributable either to patients or to physicians' failure to recognize warning signs. Melanoma prevention campaigns should place more emphasis on the possibility of melanomas appearing on the palms and, particularly, on the soles.

Plantar heel reconstruction with a sensate plantar medial artery musculocutaneous pedicled island flap after wide excision of melanoma

Reconstruction of soft tissue defects in the plantar heel pad presents a surgical challenge that requires replacing the lost tissue with another tissue having similarly unique physical characteristics. This case report describes a reconstruction of the plantar heel pad after wide excision of a heel melanoma, using a sensate plantar medial artery musculocutaneous pedicled island flap.

NUAK2: an emerging acral melanoma oncogene

Recent technological advances in cancer genomics make it possible to dissect complicated genomic aberrations of melanomas. In particular, several specific genomic aberrations including 11q13 amplification and KIT aberrations have been identified in acral melanomas. We recently identified NUAK2 at 1q32 as a promising oncogene in acral melanomas and reported its significant roles in tumorigenesis in melanoma cells using both in vitro and in vivo analyses. NUAK2 as a member of the AMPK family has several intriguing aspects both as an oncogene and as a tumor suppressor gene. Here we review genomic aberrations of melanomas focusing on acral melanomas to emphasize the possible roles of NUAK2 in tumorigenesis in general and suggest that NUAK2 has pivotal roles in acral melanomagenesis.

Acral lentiginous melanoma: a clinicoprognostic study of 126 cases

BACKGROUND

Although the histopathological subtype of melanoma has not been clearly proven to carry independent prognostic significance, acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) seems to confer a poorer prognosis mainly because disease is often more advanced at the time of diagnosis.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the distinctive epidemiological and clinical characteristics of ALM, a peculiar histological entity, and to identify prognostic factors.

METHODS

We performed a register-based review of cases from a single large referral centre, the University Hospital Department of Dermatology, Lyons, France. We reviewed patient demographics, the initial presentation of the lesion, and clinical outcome. ALM-specific and disease-free survival were estimated using the KaplanMeier method and compared using the log-rank test. A Cox model was used to identify prognostic factors.

RESULTS

One hundred and twenty-six patients were identified as having histopathology-proven ALM in our melanoma patient register from 1996 to 2004. There were 46 (37%) subungual ALM and 80 (63%) ALM on soles, palms and nonvolar sites. The mean age at diagnosis was 63 years. There were 44 (35%) men and 82 (65%) women, sex ratio M/F 1 : 1.86. The mean Breslow thickness was 2.51 mm (range: in situ to 20 mm). There was no evidence of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, nor was there found a predisposing genetic trait. Only 16 (13%) patients recalled a history of trauma. Thirty-four ALM (28%) were unpigmented. The median ALM-specific and disease-free survival were 13.5 and 10.1 years, respectively. The 5-year survival rate was 76%. Multivariate analysis identified tumour thickness, male gender and amelanosis as independent clinical prognostic factors for both ALM-specific and disease-free survival.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study provides specific information on the clinical characteristics and outcome of this uncommon histological subtype of melanoma. However, the pathogenesis remains unknown. Breslow thickness, male gender and amelanosis were significantly associated with a poorer prognosis.

Diagnosis and treatment of malignant melanoma of the foot

BACKGROUND

Patients diagnosed with melanoma of the foot have been reported to have a poor prognosis. We reviewed our experience at a tertiary-care medical clinic to determine the disease course in patients diagnosed with melanoma of the foot.

METHODS

A retrospective review was performed of 38 patients with a diagnosis of primary or locally recurrent melanoma of the foot treated between January, 1988, and July, 2004. The main outcome measures included methods of diagnosis, clinical and histopathologic features, and patterns of recurrence.

RESULTS

The mean age at diagnosis was 61 years; most were women (58%) and Caucasian (95%). The average time to diagnosis was 17 months. Initial clinical diagnosis had been considered benign in 12 (32%). The median Breslow thickness was 1.75 mm, T1 lesions were the most common, and acral lentiginous melanoma accounted for 42%. Thirteen patients (34%) had ulcerated lesions. Sentinel lymph node biopsy specimens of 25 patients identified four (16%) with metastatic disease. Surgical complications occurred in 12 patients, usually after skin graft or soft-tissue flap reconstruction. Systemic recurrence developed in six patients, four of whom also had regional recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS

Most patients were elderly Caucasian women and most presented with early-stage disease, but diagnosis can be difficult and a subgroup presented with thick melanomas. Reconstructive surgical procedures had a high rate of complications; however, overall functional outcomes were good. Stage of cancer at diagnosis was associated with systemic metastases.

Controversies in acral lentiginous melanoma

BACKGROUND

Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is a subtype of melanoma initially described only two and half decades ago, but well-recognized by dermatologists today. However, several areas of controversy surround this entity.

OBJECTIVE

The primary aims of this article are to review the literature, highlight recent advances, and review some of the ongoing controversies in ALM.

METHODS

A review of the English language literature was performed.

RESULTS

Controversy continues to surround ALM, particularly in regard to diagnostic histologic and clinical criteria. This leads to difficulties when reviewing studies that evaluate the epidemiology, etiology, and prognosis of ALM.

CONCLUSION

Progress in understanding ALM requires the development of standardized diagnostic criteria.

Melanoma incidence trends

This article describes melanoma as an important health concern because of its rapid and continuous growth in many parts of the world. In the United States, a persistent increase in incidence is seen, which has started to slow in recent years. In some countries, differing trends are seen in younger people, with incidence and mortality rates leveling off or decreasing in this population. This article describes that despite this leveling off, melanoma incidence is likely to continue to rise in the near future, because rates are still increasing in older people who comprise most of those afflicted with melanoma.

Amelanotic malignant melanomas of the oral mucosa

Oral amelanotic melanomas are rare and the prognosis is poorer than that of pigmented melanomas because of delays in establishing the correct diagnosis and in the initiation of treatment. Amelanotic forms are also thought to be biologically more aggressive than pigmented melanomas. We have seen three cases of oral amelanotic melanomas since 1970, in two of whom the diagnosis was long delayed. Two lesions were not pigmented but one had slight pigmentation. One patient simultaneously had both an amelanotic and a pigmented melanoma in the oral cavity. Lymph node metastases and distant metastases developed in all patients, two of whom eventually died of the disease. Early diagnosis by histological examination together with immunostaining with S100 and HMB-45 are the keys to improve survival for patients with amelanotic melanoma.

Plantar malignant melanoma -- a challenge for early recognition

The incidence of malignant melanoma has been continuously increasing over the last few decades. Non-plantar melanomas are nowadays usually diagnosed and treated surgically at an early stage. In contrast, melanoma in a plantar location is usually diagnosed at an advanced tumour stage, conferring a poor prognosis. To discover the reasons for this remarkable difference in recognition and prognosis, we analysed our cases of plantar malignant melanoma in a retrospective study. From 1990 to 1997, we treated 925 melanoma patients. Of these, 68 cases (7%) were classified as plantar melanoma. For non-plantar melanoma patients the mean age was 52.6 years, the mean Clark level was 2.8 and the mean tumour depth was 1.22 mm. In contrast, the mean age of patients with plantar melanoma was 63.3 years, the mean Clark level was 3.61 and the mean tumour depth was 2.55 mm. The mean time between the first observation of the plantar skin lesion and the first consultation with a physician (patients' delay) was 4.8 years and, on average, it took an additional 7 months before adequate surgical treatment was performed (physicians' delay). The prognosis of our patients was poor. In 98.5% (n = 67) further metastases were observed on follow-up. Since there is still no cure for advanced plantar malignant melanoma, the early detection and subsequent surgical treatment of plantar melanoma is decisive for the prognosis. Based on our results, the poor survival can be improved by a significant reduction in the time period between the first observation of a plantar skin lesion and surgical treatment. Therefore there is an urgent need for special preventive health care campaigns to reduce significantly both the patients' and the physicians' delay.