Melanoma patients with unknown primary site or nodal recurrence after initial diagnosis have a favourable survival compared to those with synchronous lymph node metastasis and primary tumour

Weide, Benjamin, Faller, Christine, Elsässer, Margrit, Büttner, Petra, Pflugfelder, Annette, Leiter, Ulrike, Eigentler, Thomas Kurt, Bauer, Jürgen, Meier, Friedegund, and Garbe, Claus (2013) Melanoma patients with unknown primary site or nodal recurrence after initial diagnosis have a favourable survival compared to those with synchronous lymph node metastasis and primary tumour. PLoS ONE, 8 (6). e66953. pp. 1-7.

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Abstract

Background: A direct comparison of prognosis between patients with regional lymph node metastases (LNM) detected synchronously with the primary melanoma (primary LNM), patients who developed their first LNM subsequently (secondary LNM) and those with initial LNM in melanoma with unknown primary site (MUP) is missing thus far.

Patients and Methods: Survival of 498 patients was calculated from the time point of the first macroscopic LNM using Kaplan Meier and multivariate Cox hazard regression analysis.

Results: Patients with secondary LNM (HR = 0.67; p = 0.009) and those with initial LNM in MUP (HR = 0.45; p = 0.008) had a better prognosis compared to patients with primary LNM (median survival time 52 and 65 vs. 24 months, respectively). A high number of involved nodes, the presence of in-transit/satellite metastases and male gender had an additional independent unfavourable effect.

Conclusions: Survival of patients with LNM in MUP and with secondary LNM is similar and considerably more favourable compared to those with primary LNM. This difference needs to be considered during patient counselling and for stratification purposes in clinical trials. The assumption of an immune privilege of patients with MUP which is responsible for rejection of the primary melanoma, and results in a favourable prognosis is not supported by our data.

Item ID: 30148
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Additional Information:

© 2013 Weide et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Date Deposited: 13 Nov 2013 05:26
FoR Codes: 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920499 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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