Some Patients With Low-Risk Melanoma in Situ May Live Longer Than General Population
Source: Dermatology Advisor, July 2023
Significant detection of low-risk melanoma in situ (MIS) among health-seeking individuals may help those who become diagnosed with low-risk MIS to live longer than those in the general population without history of MIS, according to study findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Dermatology.
MIS has contributed disproportionately to the rapidly rising incidence of cutaneous melanoma over the past 2 generations, with a 50-fold increase in the MIS incidence rate since 1975. Investigators sought to characterize mortality risk and associated factors following a diagnosis of MIS.
The US population-based retrospective cohort study included data on 137,872 adult patients (53.6% men) with a first-and-only MIS diagnosis recorded between 2000 and 2018 in the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program database. Patients were at least 20 years of age (mean [SD] age at diagnosis, 61.9 [16.5] years; 56.6% older than 60 years). The investigators evaluated 15-year melanoma-specific survival and 15-year (relative) survival compared with similar individuals without MIS, as well as standardized mortality ratios (SMRs). Hazard ratios (HRs) for death by clinical or demographic characteristics were estimated using Cox regression models.