A comparison of cutaneous melanoma patients who recur following a negative sentinel lymph node biopsy to those with a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy.

9065 Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for cutaneous melanoma yields powerful prognostic information. Patients with a negative SLNB who recur experience worse outcomes than those with a positive SLNB based upon subgroup analysis in the Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial (MSLT-1). The PURPOSE of this study was to compare our patients who recur following a negative SLNB to those with a positive SLNB. Methods: Retrospective chart review of a prospectively created database of patients with cutaneous melanoma undergoing SLNB from February 1995 to January 2013. Results: Of 1017 patients who underwent SLNB, 170 (17%) recurred after a negative biopsy: 60 (35%) were local/in-transit recurrences, 33 (19%) regional and 73 (43%) distant at a median 27 months (range 15-50 months). One hundred and fifty-seven (15%) patients had a positive SLNB of which 131 (77%) underwent completion lymph node dissection (CLND). Fifty-six (36%) of those patients recurred a median 14 months later (range 8-30 months)...