Higher rates of metastatic melanoma affect Southeast Asian patients
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Key takeaways:
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Higher rates of acral lentiginous melanoma were reported in Southeast Asian patients, compared to other Asian subgroups.
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Ulceration was higher in Southeast Asian patients than other Asian groups.
Among Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, Southeast Asians had higher rates of metastatic and acral lentiginous melanoma and higher rates of ulceration. Image: Adobe Stock.
NEW ORLEANS — Among Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, Southeast Asians had higher rates of metastatic and acral lentiginous melanoma and higher rates of ulceration, according to a presentation here.
“Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are a diverse, rapidly growing population in the United States,” Angela H. Wei, BD, of the department of dermatology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, and colleagues wrote in a poster presented at the Skin of Color Society Scientific Symposium. “Few studies have characterized melanoma presentation in AAPI populations, and those that do are limited by small cohort size and have reported AAPI as a singular racial group.”
Researchers analyzed cases of malignant melanoma in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Specialized Asian American and Pacific Islander Database, which included data for East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations. These data were collected from 1994 to 2014.
According to the analysis, superficial spreading melanoma was the most common amongst all melanoma subtypes at 20.8% overall. In considering individual groups, this subtype was most common in East Asian patients at 21.3%, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander patients at 27.1% and South Asian patients at 26.7%.
For Southeast Asian patients, acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) was the most common subtype at 15.34%. Additionally, 33.2% of this population had metastatic melanoma, which was the highest rate among all groups. The Southeastern Asian group also had higher rates of ulceration (37.3%) compared with the other groups.
“ALM is an aggressive melanoma subtype and may explain the more advanced and aggressive disease features seen in this patient population,” the authors wrote. “Future studies should validate these findings in a larger cohort and investigate whether these differences in melanoma characteristics translate to differences in survival.