TOPLINE:
Incipient ulceration in primary cutaneous melanoma may represent a more biologically aggressive disease population than truly nonulcerated tumors.
METHODOLOGY:
- The final cohort included 40 cases of incipient ulceration that were matched 1:2 with 80 nonulcerated controls and 80 ulcerated controls.
- The prognostic significance of incipient ulceration in cutaneous melanoma is unclear.
- Current American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) guidelines classify incipient ulceration as nonulcerated.
- In a retrospective case-control study, researchers drew from the Melanoma Institute Australia database to identify resected primary cutaneous melanomas diagnosed between 2005 and 2015 that had slides available at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and a Breslow thickness greater than 0 mm.
- Clinical outcomes compared between cases and controls were recurrence-free survival (RFS), melanoma-specific survival (MSS), and overall survival (OS).
TAKEAWAY:
- The median Breslow depth was 2.8 mm for incipient cases, compared with 1.0 mm for nonulcerated melanomas and 5.3 mm for ulcerated melanomas, while the median tumor mitotic rate was 5.0 per mm2 for incipient cases, compared with 1 per mm2 in nonulcerated controls and 9 per mm2 in ulcerated controls.
- On univariable analyses, compared with patients with incipiently ulcerated cases, patients with nonulcerated tumors had significantly better OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.49) and RFS (HR, 0.37), while patients with ulcerated tumors showed worse RFS (HR, 1.67).
- On multivariable analyses, no differences in survival outcomes were observed, perhaps due to the moderate number of incipient ulceration cases included in the study, the authors wrote.
IN PRACTICE:
“Future editions of the AJCC staging system should consider acknowledging this interpretive challenge and provide guidance on how primary melanomas with incipient ulceration should be classified,” the researchers wrote.
SOURCE:
Richard A. Scolyer, MD, a pathologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, Australia, is the senior author on the study, which was published online in JAMA Dermatology.
LIMITATIONS:
Limitations of the study include its retrospective design and the relatively small number of cases that met criteria for inclusion.
DISCLOSURES:
Dr. Scolyer disclosed that he has received grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and personal fees from MetaOptima, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Evaxion, Provectus, QBiotics, Novartis, Merck Sharp & Dohme, NeraCare, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Myriad Genetics, and GlaxoSmithKline, all outside the submitted work. Four coauthors reported having received financial support outside of the submitted work.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.