Latest AJCC Edition Staging System May Not Be As Effective in Differentiating Survival in Melanoma
Source: Cancer Therapy Advisor, June 2018
An external validation of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 8th edition staging system found that the latest edition maintained a similar prognostic accuracy as its predecessor, but may not differentiate survival among patients with early-stage melanoma as well as the 7th edition, according to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2018 Annual Meeting on Monday, June 4.1
Accurate staging and patient selection is critical to establish an appropriate risk/benefit ratio. In efforts to improve risk stratification for patients with melanoma with the 8th Edition AJCC staging system, study authors conducted a study comparing the prognostic and discriminatory ability for survival with the 7th and 8th Editions.
For this analysis, researchers assessed the outcomes of a prospective cohort of 640 patients from the Netherlands Cancer Institute who were treated for AJCC 7/8th Edition stage III melanoma between 2000 and 2016. Specifically, melanoma-specific survival (MSS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were studied as prognostic factors; survival differentiation seen in the 7th and 8th editions were also statistically analyzed.