Abstract

Cancer is more common in elderly patients and melanoma incidence in particular continues to rise in this population. Most melanoma deaths occur in older patients, and mortality is specifically increasing in the elderly. Even after taking the main prognostic factors: Breslow, mitosis and ulceration into account, there is a survival discrepancy between elderly and young patients, and old age is recognised in multivariate analysis as the strongest independent adverse prognostic factor together with Breslow thickness. We aim to study the biological tumour differences underpinning the difference in survival and the differences in the aged skin microenvironment driving unique malignant potential at the earliest stages of disease.