Introduction:

Melanoma is a cutaneous neoplasm originating from melanocytes. This tumor, despite representing only 5% of skin neoplasms, is responsible for 70% of deaths caused by skin cancer. In Colombia, a mortality of 0.5/100,000 inhabitants has been reported with a survival rate of 79% at 5 years, but in the case of acral lentiginous melanoma, survival is only 54%. However, national data are not clear, which highlights the need to characterize patients with this diagnosis to contribute to further epidemiological studies.

Methodology:

Cross-sectional study of the clinical, demographic, and histopathological records of patients with diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma, who were attended in two dermatological centers of Bogotá, Colombia, during 2012-2016.

Results:

A total of 255 patients were included, most of them women (61.0%). An increase from 22 to 64 diagnosed cases was observed from 2012 to 2016, respectively. The most frequent histological subtype was lentigo maligna (33.7%), followed by lentiginous acral melanoma (16.1%). The main location was face (43.1%). The time between detection and confirmation of diagnosis by biopsy was 17 months. 20% of the cases had a Breslow index <1 and 42.4% of the cases were Clark's level I.

Conclusions:

There was an increase in the number of new cases of cutaneous melanoma between 2012 and 2016, the most frequently diagnosed subtypes being lentigo maligna and acral lentiginous melanoma. The average time of diagnosis was prolonged.

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