Prognostic factors in head and neck melanoma. Effect of lesion location

Cutaneous malignant melanomas of the head and neck are prognostically engimatic. In addition to known prognostic determinants of stage and lesion microstage, lesion location also appears to have prognostic importance. The authors have reviewed a series of 83 microstaged head and neck melanoma patien...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cancer 1988-08, Vol.62 (4), p.831-837
Main Authors: Wanebo, Harold J., Cooper, Philip H., Young, Daniel V., Harpole, David H., Kaiser, Donald L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Biological and medical sciences
Dermatology
Ear
Female
Head and Neck Neoplasms - mortality
Head and Neck Neoplasms - pathology
Head and Neck Neoplasms - surgery
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Melanoma - mortality
Melanoma - pathology
Melanoma - surgery
Middle Aged
Neoplasm Staging
Prognosis
Scalp
Statistics as Topic
Tumors of the skin and soft tissue. Premalignant lesions
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Summary:Cutaneous malignant melanomas of the head and neck are prognostically engimatic. In addition to known prognostic determinants of stage and lesion microstage, lesion location also appears to have prognostic importance. The authors have reviewed a series of 83 microstaged head and neck melanoma patients in order to analyze the relative importance of these factors. There were 36 males and 47 females with a median age of 56 years. Eighty‐one percent had pathologic Stage I disease, 7% were Stage II, and 12% were Stage III. The primary location was face in 32 patients, neck in 18, ear in 12, and scalp in 21 patients. The actuarial 5‐year survival according to lesion thickness was 86% for melanoma < 1.0 mm, 56% for 1 to 2 mm thick lesions, 47% for 2.1 to 4 mm thick lesions, and 25% for melanomas > 4.0 mm. The 5‐year survival according to lesion location was 78% for facial and 58% for neck melanomas; for ear and scalp, the respective survivals were 33% and 37%. Median thickness was 2.0 mm for facial and 1.85 mm for neck lesions. It was 2.7 mm for ear and 2.0 mm for scalp lesions (differences not significant). There were no microstage factors that correlated with the adverse prognosis seen with scalp and ear melanomas. Multivariate analysis in the entire series (all clinical stages) showed the following to be significant: stage, thickness, and location of the primary melanoma (all
ISSN:0008-543X
1097-0142
DOI:10.1002/1097-0142(19880815)62:4<831::AID-CNCR2820620432>3.0.CO;2-X