{"entity":{"id":"ulceration-melanoma","kind":"term","name":"Ulceration (melanoma)","aka":[],"tldr":"Loss of the skin surface over a melanoma under the microscope; a sign of aggressive biology that raises the stage.","summary":"Ulceration in melanoma is loss of the intact skin surface over the primary tumour as seen under the microscope, and it is a marker of aggressive biology. It is present in roughly a quarter of primary melanomas, independently worsens prognosis, and defines the b substage at each T level, so a lesion of a given Breslow thickness is staged higher if it is ulcerated. Historically it was taken to predict benefit from interferon; today its main role is in defining stage IIB and IIC, the group for which adjuvant PD-1 therapy is approved. The term is read alongside Breslow thickness, the other pathological feature that drives staging of the primary.","asOf":"2026-09-07","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanoma","links":[{"label":"NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: ulceration","url":"https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/ulceration"},{"label":"Gershenwald et al., Melanoma staging: evidence-based changes in the AJCC eighth edition (CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 2017)","url":"https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21409"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["melanoma"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["breslow-thickness"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Pathology"},"route":"/terms/ulceration-melanoma/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"acral-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Acral melanoma","route":"/cancers/acral-melanoma/"},{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"},{"id":"stage-ii-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Stage IIB and IIC melanoma","route":"/cancers/stage-ii-melanoma/"},{"id":"stage-iii-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Stage III melanoma (after surgery)","route":"/cancers/stage-iii-melanoma/"}],"term":[{"id":"breslow-thickness","kind":"term","name":"Breslow thickness","route":"/terms/breslow-thickness/"}]}}