A Randomized Phase III Study of Management of Treatment Naive Primary Melanoma in Elderly Patients

Study Purpose

Can we treat your melanoma just as effectively without doing a sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy in addition to your wide local excision (WLE) procedure? A wide local excision (WLE) is a surgical procedure performed to cut out an abnormal lesion and some surrounding normal tissue. This is sometimes followed by a sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, in which lymph nodes that cancer cells could spread to are removed as well. We are doing this study because we want to find out if performing the WLE alone is just as effective as the usual approach for your melanoma, and if it leads to improvements in patients' overall well-being. The usual approach is defined as care most people get for the early stage of melanoma that you currently have.