Epidemiology of uveal melanoma in Brazil

To report the prevalence of uveal melanoma in a Hospital database in Brazil over the period of 16 years (2000 to 2016).

Descriptive epidemiological study evaluating the Brazilian Hospital Based Cancer Registries.

Uveal melanomas were identified based on ICD-O-3 codes C69.3 [choroid], C69.4 [ciliary body and iris], and C69.2 [retina]) derived from the Integrator Registry database. Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test was used for evaluation of normality of data, t-test and Chi square were used for categorical and continuous variables respectively using SPSS Software.

Age, sex, education, regional distribution, clinical staging at the diagnosis, time from diagnosis to treatment (≤ 60 days versus > 60 days) and first-course therapy (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a combination of such).

There were 2166 cases of uveal melanoma representing 5.4% of all cases of melanoma. Histological confirmation of uveal melanoma was available in all cases. Higher prevalence of 1139 cases (52.6%) in women than 1027 cases (47.4%) in men was observed. Age distribution revealed 1411 cases (65.1%) in the group between 41 and 69 years old. A total of 429 (19.8%) patients were classified as initial disease and 334 (15.4%) as advanced (regional or distant metastases). Staging as initial disease was more frequent (113-24.8%) in patients with > 8 school years than in patients with < 8 school years (179-17.6%) reflecting disparities in healthcare access between those two populations. No difference was noticed in terms of diagnosis, staging and treatment after the Brazilian "60 days law" (Federal Law 12.732/12) came into effect in 2013 regulating the maximum period that a patient with cancer has to wait until start the treatment.

Epidemiological data is critical for planning early treatment strategies and allocating medical resources. This study intended to understand the characteristics of uveal melanoma in Brazil.