Mohs micrographic surgery may be an effective alternative to traditional wide-margin excision in some patients with early invasive melanoma, a large study suggests.

Yale University researchers looked at retrospective data for more than 70,000 patients (median age 57, 52% male, 97% Caucasian) with American Joint Committee on Cancer-8 stage I melanoma in the US National Cancer Database from 2004 to 2014.

As reported in JAMA Dermatology, some 67,000 were treated with wide margin excision and 3234 with Mohs.

Overall survival with wide margin excision was 95.2% at three years, 90.9% at five years and 80% at 10 years respectively.