Trunk melanomas: no survival differences between lesion sites

The anatomic site of primary melanoma is significantly associated with patient survival, e.g. trunk melanomas have poorer prognosis than limb melanomas. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathological factors and survival outcomes of trunk melanoma patients and to identify the differences between anatomical areas of the trunk.

A total of 491 trunk melanomas were analyzed retrospectively.

The median age was 49 years. The 5-year relapse-free survival rate was 58.3% for all patients, which was 60%, 53.1%, 56.5%, 60.1%, and 66.1% for chest, abdominal, dorsal, lumbar, and gluteal melanoma patients, respectively (p = 0.8). The 5-year overall survival rate was 61.1% for all patients, which was 62.6%, 57.4%, 59.1%, 66.9%, and 72.1% for chest, abdominal, dorsal, lumbar, and gluteal melanoma patients, respectively (p = 0.3). The unfavorable pathological and clinical prognostic factors, such as sex (p = 0.0001), histology (p = 0.0001), Clark level (p = 0.0001), Breslow depth (p = 0.0001), mitotic rate (p = 0.002), ulceration (0.0001), lymphovascular invasion (p = 0.01), BRAF mutation (p = 0.01), lymph node positivity (p = 0.0001), metastasis (p = 0.0001), and relapse (p = 0.0001), were found to be associated with overall survival.

Trunk melanomas may be associated with aggressive pathological and poor clinical features, such as thickness, mitotic rate, ulceration, and advanced clinical stages; therefore, they predict unfavorable survival rates regardless of anatomical sites.