Metastatic Behavior in Melanoma : Timing, Pattern, Survival, and Influencing Factors

Abstract EN

Metastatic melanoma (MM) is a fatal disease with a rapid systemic dissemination.

This study was conducted to investigate the metastatic behavior, timing, patterns, survival, and influencing factors in MM.

214 patients with MM were evaluated retrospectively.

Distant metastases (82%) were the most frequent for patients initially metastatic.

The median and 1-year survival rates of initially MM patients were 10 months and 41%, respectively.

The median time to metastasis for patients with localized disease was 28 months.

The timing of appearance of metastases varied minimally; however, times to metastases for distant organs varied greatly.

For the first metastatic pathway, more than half of the primary metastases were M1A (57%).

These findings were in contrast to the results compared with those with metastatic in diagnosis (P<0.001).

The median and 1-year survival rates of all patients were 12 months and 49%, respectively.

Outcome was higher in M1A than visceral metastases (P<0.001).

In conclusion, the fact that over half of all recurrences/metastases occurred within 3 years urges us to concentrate follow-up in the early time periods following diagnosis.

Because the clinical behavior of MM is variable, the factors for survival consisting of site and number of metastases should be emphasized.