Journal of the American College of Surgeons
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Current guidelines recommend excisional/complete biopsy for melanoma diagnosis, owing to high rates of residual disease found at wide local excision (WLE) after partial biopsy techniques. We sought to determine any survival disadvantage associated with the presence of residual invasive melanoma in the WLE after diagnosis with a partial biopsy technique. ⋯ Survival in patients with primary melanoma does not appear to be worse in patients who undergo a partial biopsy technique and are later found to have residual invasive tumor in the WLE specimen.