Late recurrence of melanoma after ten years – Is the course of the disease different from early recurrences?

Source: MDLinx, January 2020

In this retrospective study involving 1,537 melanoma patients, researchers examined clinicopathological characteristics and the course of melanoma to identify prognostic factors, contrasting early and late recurrence (LR), defined as melanoma recurrence 10 years after the first diagnosis, in patients followed at the Department of Dermatology of the University Hospital of Tübingen between February 1976 and June 2015. In order to identify significant independent prognostic factors for melanoma specific survival (MSS), Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used. In 1,438 patients, early metastasis was developed, and late metastasis was developed in 99 patients. Patients with late recurrence were younger and had fewer ulcerated, fewer head/neck localized and thinner melanomas than patients with early recurrence (ER), defined as melanoma recurrence within 10 years. According to multivariate regression analysis, male gender, truncal tumor localisation, tumor thickness and ulceration as significant independent prognostic factors for MSS. Although it is noted that ER and LR patients have different clinicopathological features, the time of first recurrence following diagnosis does not appear to affect survival.