[Survival rates for large choroidal melanomas]

Choosing the treatment method for patients with large choroidal melanomas remains a subject of debate. No literature data can be found on survival of such patients after either eye-preserving surgery or enucleation that takes into account the initial tumor size. The purpose of the study was to analyze the five-year survival rates for large choroidal melanomas (by J.A. Shields) in respect of the provided treatment.

Medical records of 103 patients who had undergone treatment for choroidal melanoma (initial prominence 5.0-10.2 mm, initial diameter 7.3-20 mm) were studied. Eye-preserving surgery was performed on 60 patients, of whom 46 patients received brachytherapy (single session in 37 cases) and the other 14 patients--brachytherapy in combination with transpupillary thermotherapy (with subsequent endoresection of the tumor in one case). A total of 16 patients from this group required secondary enucleation. Primary enucleation was performed on 63 patients. Histopathological results confirming choroidal melanoma were analyzed in all 79 cases.

The 5-year melanoma-specific cumulative survival rate in the group of eye-preserving surgery was 0.8146, while in the group of primary enucleation it reached 0.8951. The 8-year rate was 0.6921 and 0.7558 correspondingly. However, according to Gehan-Wilcoxon test, the differences were statistically insignificant (p = 0.11). The five-year survival of large choroidal melanoma patients who underwent eye-preserving surgery and no enucleation was 0.7708, 9-year - 0.6175.

Since the five-year melanoma-specific survival rate after primary enucleation is higher than that after eye-preserving surgery and secondary enucleation (though the difference is statistically insignificant), treatment options for large choroidal melanomas have to be chosen individually, taking into account the age and attitude of the patient as well as the size of the tumor.