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The increasing use of shave biopsy for diagnosing invasive melanoma in Australia

Sara L Menezes, John W Kelly and Victoria Mar
Med J Aust 2020; 212 (5): . || doi: 10.5694/mja2.50502
Published online: 16 March 2020

In reply: We thank Byth and Byth for sharing their perspectives on our article.1 The authors queried whether better equipment and training over the 10‐year period may have had an impact on base transection rates. In fact, our data suggest poorer performance over time, with base transection rates for shave biopsies of 45% (17/37), 55% (32/58) and 56% (45/80) in 2005, 2010 and 2015 respectively (unpublished data).


  • 1 Victorian Melanoma Service, Alfred Health, Melbourne, VIC
  • 2 Monash University Central Clinical School, Melbourne, VIC


Correspondence: 

Competing interests:

Victoria Mar and John Kelly are involved in developing the Cancer Council melanoma clinical practice guidelines.

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