This systematic review evaluates narrow excision margins for melanoma, suggesting safety measures yet indicating need for high-quality trials.
Current evidence suggests that narrower lateral margins and shallower deep excision strategies could be oncologically safe. However, the absence of an observed association with higher rates of LR or worse survival outcome should not be interpreted as proof of non-inferiority to standard WLE, given the predominance of observational data, heterogeneity across studies, and limited statistical power in smaller cohorts. High-quality prospective randomized trials are required. Ongoing randomized trials (MelMART-II, WoW, and ICEMAN) will play a key role in refining future surgical margin recommendations.
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Balado-Simó et al. (2026) studied this question.
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