Malignant Melanoma Margins

To the Editor: Day et al.* advocate that we dispense with surgical methods that now predictably achieve local cure of melanoma in more than 95 per cent of our patients, on the basis of studies that employed neither prospective randomization nor stratification of the variables that are known to influence the recurrence of melanoma. The misinterpretation of subtle points in the stratification of patients will escape many general practitioners. A great disservice to the patient with melanoma will occur, since this publication will inevitably be misused to support inadequate surgery in the hands of less critical readers of the Journal . . .