Second primary melanomas in a cohort of 977 melanoma patients within the first 5 years of monitoring

Comment on: “Second primary melanomas in a cohort of 977 melanoma patients within the first 5 years of monitoring”

“…To the Editor: We read with great interest the article entitled ''Second primary melanomas in a cohort of 977 melanoma patients within the first 5 years of monitoring'' 1 recently published in your journal, and we want to report our own experience regarding the percentage of second primary melanomas (SPMs) developed during the 5-year follow-up period in patients with melanoma. This retrospective analysis included patients with melanoma history who were followed up at the Melanoma Unit of the University of Federico II, Naples, Italy, from January 2014 through December 2018.…”

Reply to: “Comment on ‘Second primary melanomas in a cohort of 977 melanoma patients within the first 5 years of monitoring’”

“…Additionally, in the cohort of Villani et al, 1 most new primary melanomas were in situ, and the remaining were minimally invasive, similar to our cohort. 2 Although in their letter Villani et al do not report the diagnostic methods used during follow-up visits (eg, total body photography or digital dermoscopy), their data, combined with ours, strongly suggest that close clinical monitoring of patients with melanoma ensures an early detection of new primary melanomas.…”

“…To the Editor: We thank Villani et al for their comment on our article and for sharing their experience with new primary melanomas developing in patients with melanoma. 1,2 Their data are not directly comparable to ours because they do not provide the cumulative risk for new primary melanoma in their cohort. However, the percentage of patients who developed a new primary melanoma is higher in the cohort of Villani et al (8.2%) than in ours (4.7%).…”

SEOM clinical guideline for the management of cutaneous melanoma (2020)

“…Dermatoscopy by an experienced physician is recommended for the diagnosis of pigmented lesions (Level of evidence 1b, grade of recommendation A) [14]. Whole-body photography and digital dermatoscopy are useful in people at high risk of melanoma, especially in early diagnosis (Level of evidence 2b, grade of recommendation B) [15]. Reflectance confocal microscopy can be helpful in lesions difficult to diagnose by visual inspection and dermatoscopy (Level of evidence 2b, grade of recommendation B) [16].…”