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Patients experienced melanoma recurrence after 10 years or longer

Almost 7% of patients treated for melanoma experienced disease recurrence at 10 years or later following initial treatment, according to study results.

Researchers at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, Calif., reviewed an institutional database of patients with melanoma who initially were treated at the facility. A late recurrence cohort, defined as having a disease-free interval of 10 years or more after potentially curative treatment, was compared with an early recurrence cohort of patients who experienced melanoma recurrence within 3 years.

Four hundred eight patients overall experienced late recurrence (mean disease-free interval, 15.7 years), while 327 patients (6.9%) experienced late recurrence among the 4,731 who received primary treatment at the cancer institute and were followed for 10 years or longer. For patients without 10-year recurrence, actuarial late recurrence rates were 6.8% at 15 years and 11.3% at 20 years.

Tumor characteristics (thin, nonulcerated, non-head/neck, node negative) and patient demographics (younger age, less male predominant) were associated with late recurrence. Younger age and thinner and node-negative tumors were confirmed in the late-recurrence group through multivariate analysis.

“Late melanoma recurrence is not rare,” the study authors concluded. “It occurs more frequently in certain clinical groups. … Late recurrences were likely to be distant, but were associated with better post-recurrence survival on univariate and multivariate analyses.”