Current surgical management of melanoma metastases to the lung

Spread of melanoma can be cutaneous, to distant lymph nodes or to visceral organs such as the lung (18-36%), liver (14-20%), brain (12-20%) and bone (11-17%) (1). Overall, the lung is the commonest site of distant metastases and patients with nonmetastatic disease have an increasing risk of developing pulmonary metastases: 10% risk at 5 years and 17% at 15 years (2). Median survival after developing pulmonary metastases is 7.3 months, which is favorable compared to patients with metastases to other visceral sites (median survival <7 months) (1,3).