Clinical and Histopathological Characteristics of Malignant Melanoma of the Skin in Tertiary Care Centre

: The present study was a retrospective and prospective study of skin tumours during the period September 2004 to September 2011. Total 133 cases presented as skin tumours of these 53 cases (39.84 %) were histologically diagnosed as benign and 80 cases (60.16 %) were diagnosed as malignant lesions. The ratio of benign to malignant skin tumours was 0.66: 1 indicating predominance of malignant lesions. Total 15405 specimens were received in the histopathology section during the study period from September 2004 to September 2011. Out of these 3200 were diagnosed as cancers of various sites in the body and cancers of skin accounted for 80 (2.5 %) cases. In the present study the most common malignancy was squamous cell carcinoma with occurrence of 46.25 % cases of total skin malignancies followed by basal cell carcinoma (26.25 %), verrucous carcinoma (5 %), adnexal carcinoma (7.5 %) and malignant melanoma (11.25 %). in the present study malignant melanoma was common in females, 33.34 % of cases were grade 3, (44.4 %) of cases the lesions were located over extremities.