Lower limb cutaneous melanoma surgery: location matters.

"Declarations Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Ethics approvalAlthough this is a retrospective study, IRB approval was obtained before its development. Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest."

"Funding Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors."

"An observational retrospective multicentre real-world study was developed in a series of consecutive patients, from 2002 to 2018, with a diagnosis of lower limb cutaneous melanoma. This study was conducted in the “Virgen de la Arrixaca” University Hospital in Murcia and the University Hospital Complex in Cartagena. Patients with lower limb cutaneous melanoma without clinical or radiological detection of lymph node involvement or metastatis were included in the study. The sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was indicated in cases with a Breslow index equal to or greater than 1 mm, or if there were risk factors for lymph node involvement in cases with an index less than 1 mm, such as the presence of ulceration or a mitotic count greater than or equal to 1 mitosis/mm2. The SLNB procedure was carried out simultaneously with the expansion of surgical margins, following the method described in previous publications []. Approval by the IRB was obtained prior to developing the study and it is registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04625491). The study has been reported in line with the STROBE criteria. Trial registration number NCT04625491 retrospectively registered."