Prognostic factors of melanoma patients with satellite or in-transit metastasis at the time of stage III diagnosis

Weide, Benjamin, Faller, Christine, Büttner, Petra, Pflugfelder, Annette, Leiter, Ulrike, Eigentler, Thomas Kurt, Bauer, Jürgen, Forschner, Andrea, Meier, Friedegund, and Garbe, Claus (2013) Prognostic factors of melanoma patients with satellite or in-transit metastasis at the time of stage III diagnosis. PLoS ONE, 8 (4). e63137. pp. 1-6.

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Abstract

Background: Prognosis of patients with loco-regional skin metastases has not been analyzed in detail and the presence or absence of concurrent lymph node metastasis represents the only established prognostic factor thus far. Most studies were limited to patients already presenting with skin lesions at the time of initial diagnosis. We aimed to analyze the impact of a broad penal of prognostic factors in patients with skin metastases at the time of first metastatic spread, including patients with synchronous lesions already present at the time of initial diagnosis, stage I/II patients with loco-regional recurrence and patients initially presenting with skin metastasis but unknown primary melanoma.

Patients and Methods: We investigated disease-specific survival of 380 patients treated at our department between 1996 and 2010 using Kaplan Meier survival probabilities and Cox-proportional hazard analysis.

Results: Five-year survival probability was 60.1% for patients with skin metastases only and 36.3% for those with synchronous nodal metastases. The number of involved nodes and a tumor thickness of at least 3 mm had independent negative impact on prognosis. A strong relationship was identified between the risk of death and the number of involved nodes. Neither ulceration nor the timing of the first occurrence of metastases as either in stage I/II patients, at the time of excision of the primary melanoma or initially in patients with unknown primary tumor, had additional effects on survival.

Conclusion: Lymph node involvement was confirmed as the most important prognostic factor for melanoma patients with loco-regional skin metastasis including those with unknown primary tumor and stage I/II patients with skin recurrence. Consideration of the tumor thickness and of the number of involved lymph nodes instead of the exclusive differentiation into presence vs. absence of nodal disease may allow a more accurate prediction of prognosis for patients with satellite or in-transit metastases.

Item ID: 30149
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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