Development and validation of a model to predict recurrence-free and disease-specific survival after SLNB in patients with melanoma

The introduction of adjuvant systemic treatment for patients with high-risk melanomas necessitates accurate staging of disease. However, inconsistencies in outcomes exist between disease stages as defined by AJCC8. A retrospective study at four centers in Europe and one center in Australia resulted in development and validation of a model to predict recurrence-free survival (RFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) for individual patients who undergo sentinal lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for stage pT1b or higher melanoma. The final model contained six prognostic factors: sentinel node status, Breslow thickness, presence of ulceration, age at SLNB, primary tumor location, and maximum diameter of the largest sentinel node metastasis. In the validation cohort, the AUC for predicting 5-year RFS was 0.73 (95% CI 0.71-0,75) and the AUC for predicting 5-year DSS was 0.76 (0.74-0.78). The authors conclude that the model accurately predicted patient-specific RFS and DSS.