Survival between synchronous and non-synchronous multiple primary cutaneous melanomas-a SEER database analysis

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 8; p. e8316
• Main Authors: Xiong, Jie, Su, Yanlin, Bing, Zhitong, Zhao, Bihai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States PeerJ. Ltd 03.01.2020; PeerJ, Inc; PeerJ Inc
• Subjects: Age; Comparative analysis; Epidemiology; Information management; Intelligence gathering; Melanoma; Mortality; Multiple primary cutaneous melanoma (MPM); Non-synchronous; Oncology; Patients; Public Health; Regression analysis; Risk factors; Skin cancer; Surveillance epidemilogy and end results (SEER); Survival; Survival analysis; Synchronous; Tumors; Synchronous; Non-synchronous; Survival; Multiple primary cutaneous melanoma (MPM); Surveillance epidemilogy and end results (SEER)
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.8316

There is no criterion to distinguish synchronous and non-synchronous multiple primary cutaneous melanomas (MPMs). This study aimed to distinguish synchronous and non-synchronous MPMs and compare the survivals of them using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Synchronous and non-synchronous MPMs were distinguished by fitting the double log transformed distribution of the time interval between the first and second primary cutaneous melanomas (TIFtS) through a piecewise linear regression. The overall and melanoma-specific survivals were compared by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazard model through modeling the occurrence of synchronous MPMs as a time-dependent variable. The distribution of TIFtS was composed by three power-law distributions. According to its first inflection point, synchronous MPMs were defined as tumors that occurred within 2 months. The Kaplain-Meier plot revealed a significant inferior survival for synchronous MPMs than non-synchronous MPMs ( < 0.0001), and the occurrence of synchronous MPM was a risk factor for overall survival of cutaneous melanoma (CM) (hazard ratio: 2.213; (95% CI [2.087-2.346]); < 0.0001). This study provided data analysis evidences for using 2 months to distinguish synchronous MPMs and non-synchronous MPMs. Furthermore, the occurrence of synchronous MPM was a risk factor for prognosis of patients with CM.