Outpatient surgical treatment of cutaneous melanoma

From January 1988 to December 1989, 920 patients with pigmented cutaneous lesions, clinically diagnosed as suspected or certain cutaneous melanoma (CM), underwent excision under local anaesthesia as outpatients. Histological examination confirmed CM in 135 patients. Patients in this group whose initial excision was for biopsy purposes only (extending 1–2 mm beyond the lesion margin) underwent a subsequent radical excision (extending ≥10 mm from the neoplastic margin). The second resection was carried out within 10 to 15 days of the first, on an outpatient basis if the thickness of the CM was