Second primary melanomas show no increased mortality risk
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Patients with second primary melanomas showed significant survival advantage and thinner lesions compared with those with single primary melanomas, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Melissa M. Sarver, MD, of Duke University School of Medicine, and colleagues noted that 1.3% to 8% of patients who develop a single primary melanoma have an increased risk for developing multiple primary melanomas (MPMs), which includes a subset of whom will develop a “second primary melanoma” within 3 months of the first lesion.
To examine tumor and patient characteristics related to this aspect, the researchers conducted a retrospective study that comprised three factors: patients with a single primary melanoma, patients with a second primary melanoma occurring within 3 months from initial diagnosis (synchronous group) and patients with a second primary melanoma diagnosed after 3 months from initial diagnosis (asynchronous group).
The researchers found that the single primary group had thicker lesions based on Breslow depth (2.2 mm) compared with the synchronous group (2 mm; P = .03) and the first identified asynchronous group (1.7 mm; P < .001).
Survival analysis showed a significantly improved survival probability among patients in the synchronous group (P = .04) and asynchronous group (P = .002) compared with patients with single primary melanomas. There was, however, no significant difference in survival between those in the synchronous and asynchronous groups.
Median survival was 19.8 years for those in the synchronous group and 17.2 for those in the asynchronous group compared with 13.9 years for patients with single primary melanomas.
“For patients with second primary melanomas, we acknowledge that the average thickness of the first lesion is higher than what has been reported in the literature,” Sarver and colleagues wrote. “There were several outliers in our dataset, likely contributing to the slightly deeper lesions overall.”