Lymph Node Biopsy Does Not Impair Survival After Therapeutic Dissection for Palpable Melanoma Metastases

Background: To determine the effects of disrupting a nodal basin in patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer stage III melanoma with clinically palpable lymph nodes, we studied patients who underwent therapeutic lymph node dissection after excisional lymph node biopsy, after fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy, or without a preoperative biopsy.