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How deep a melanoma has grown into the skin, in millimetres. The single strongest predictor of whether it will spread.
Breslow thickness is the depth in millimetres to which a melanoma has grown into the skin, measured from the granular layer to the deepest tumour cell, and it is the single strongest predictor of whether the cancer will spread. It drives the T stage within TNM staging, from T1 for lesions of 1 mm or less to T4 for those over 4 mm, and it determines when a sentinel lymph node biopsy is offered, generally from around 0.8 mm or when ulceration is present. Together with ulceration, which upstages within each thickness band, it sets eligibility for adjuvant therapy. Readers meet it on the melanoma page, in the wide local excision entry, and in the dermoscopy, total-body photography and AI skin analysis technology.
Each skin cancer comes from a different cell layer: melanocytes and basal cells at the base of the epidermis, keratinocytes above them, Merkel cells and blood vessels in the dermis; depth of invasion decides the risk.
Same organ: Basal cell carcinoma, Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, Kaposi sarcoma, Skin cancer (all types), BRAF V600-mutant melanoma, Stage III melanoma (after surgery), Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Advanced melanoma (unresectable stage III and stage IV), Mucosal melanoma, Acral melanoma, Advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Locally advanced and metastatic basal cell carcinoma, Bowen's disease (squamous cell carcinoma in situ), Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans
Showing the organ this term concerns: Melanoma.
Shares Dermoscopy, total-body photography & AI skin analysis, Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Acral melanoma, Melanoma.
Shares Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Stage III melanoma (after surgery), Melanoma.
Shares Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Stage III melanoma (after surgery), Melanoma.
Shares Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Stage III melanoma (after surgery), Melanoma.
Shares Stage IIB and IIC melanoma, Stage III melanoma (after surgery).
Shares Dermoscopy, total-body photography & AI skin analysis, Melanoma.
Shares Dermoscopy, total-body photography & AI skin analysis, Melanoma.
Shares Dermoscopy, total-body photography & AI skin analysis, Melanoma.