Analysis of prognosis and disease progression after local recurrence of melanoma

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Abstract
BACKGROUND Local recurrence of melanoma is associated with a grave prognosis. However, the characteristics and the mode of disease progression for patients with local recurrence have not been adequately addressed in the literature. METHODS A retrospective analysis of patients treated at a single institution revealed a subset of patients (n = 648) with local recurrence of melanoma as a first event. Patient characteristics, histologic determinants, and disease free interval were variables used to identify prognostic factors. RESULTS In this group of patients, male gender (P = 0.0163), increasing age (P = 0.0001), head and neck primaries (P = 0.0001), thicker Breslow depths (P = 0.0022), deeper Clark levels (P = 0.0010), and ulceration of the primary tumor (P = 0.0348) suggested a shorter time until local recurrence. Breslow depth (P = 0.0004), Clark level (P = 0.0043), and ulceration (P = 0.0001) still factored into the survival prognosis after recurrence. Truncal primaries (P = 0.0005) and shorter disease free intervals (P = 0.0098) were also associated with poorer outcomes after recurrence. Of the 648 patients, 124 showed no progression, 196 developed another local recurrence, 178 developed in‐transit/lymph node metastases, and 150 had systemic recurrences. Survival was only 33.6% for patients with further metastases, compared with 77.4% for patients with no progression of disease after a median follow‐up of 38.9 months. CONCLUSIONS There was a 48.5% mortality rate at 5 years of follow‐up after local recurrence. Long term survival (> 10 years) was estimated to be 34.9%. The patterns of failure after local recurrence suggest that patients may benefit from aggressive locoregional therapy. Cancer 2000;88:1063–71. © 2000 American Cancer Society.