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07/02/26

Years of life lost in patients with a false-negative diagnosis of primary melanoma. A prospective study of the German Central Malignant Melanoma Registry involving 9063 patients over 28 years.

Garbe, Claus; Keim, Ulrike; Amaral, Teresa; Ascierto, Paolo A; Bauer, Jürgen; Dummer, Reinhard; Eggermont, Alexander M M; Eigentler, Thomas K; Flatz, Lukas; Forchhammer, Stephan; Forschner, Andrea; Gandini, Sara; Gershenwald, Jeffrey E; Hauschild, Axel; Hoeller, Christoph; Kirkwood, John M; Lebbe, Celeste; Long, Georgina V; Lorigan, Paul; Luke, Jason J; Meier, Friedegund; Metzler, Gisela; Nathan, Paul; Postow, Michael A; Robert, Caroline; Röcken, Martin; Schadendorf, Dirk; Weide, Benjamin; Whiteman, David; Leiter, Ulrike; Martus, Peter. Nature Commun.

Collection Topics
Big Three Conditions Epidemiology Equity, Access, and Timeliness
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Summary

False-negative cancer diagnoses can impose substantial downstream harm. This prospective, German registry study follows 9,063 melanoma patients over 28 years to identify false-negative diagnoses in 2.3% of the patients. Median time to correct diagnosis was 24 months; affected patients had markedly worse recurrence-free and melanoma-specific survival. Each false-negative diagnosis was associated with an average 8.2 years of life lost, quantifying the consequences of diagnostic delay.
Read the paper
Garbe C, Keim U, Amaral T, et al. Years of life lost in patients with a false-negative diagnosis of primary melanoma. A prospective study of the German Central Malignant Melanoma Registry involving 9063 patients over 28 years. Nat Commun. 2026;17(1):5790.