Abstract: 【Abstract】 Early diagnosis of acral melanoma and timely detection of its metastatic lesions, together with the implementation of appropriate therapeutic strategies, can significantly improve patient outcomes and prolong survival. This review summarizes the clinical and pathological characteristics of acral melanoma and highlights the pivotal role of sentinel lymph node biopsy in assessing early metastasis. In addition, it outlines recent advances in early diagnostic techniques and early detection of metastatic lesions, including artificial intelligence-assisted diagnostic systems, dermoscopy and reflectance confocal microscopy, liquid biopsy, novel radionuclide probes, and multi-omics profiling.

Key words: Melanoma, Diagnosis, Neoplasm metastasis, Sentinel lymph node biopsy, Molecular probes, Liquid biopsy