Sentinel-Node Biopsy in Melanoma

To the Editor: The results of the trial by Morton et al. (Sept. 28 issue) 1 involving sentinel-node biopsy in patients with melanoma do not show a survival benefit with immediate lymphadenectomy for three reasons. First, there were false positive results in the sentinel node (tiny deposits of melanoma not destined to progress to a palpable nodal recurrence, which is a surrogate measure for survival). Since there was no significant difference in survival between the study groups from the time of randomization, only 119 patients in the biopsy group would be expected to have a palpable nodal recurrence; of these patients, . .