Long-Term survival across breslow thickness categories: Findings from a Population-Based study of 210,042 Australian melanoma patients

Serigne N Lo; Gabrielle J Williams; Anne E Cust; Alexander H R Varey; Sydney Ch'ng Md; Richard A Scolyer; John F Thompson

doi:10.1093/jnci/djae198

Long-Term survival across breslow thickness categories: Findings from a Population-Based study of 210,042 Australian melanoma patients

J Natl Cancer Inst. 2024 Sep 9:djae198. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djae198. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Serigne N Lo^{1

2}, Gabrielle J Williams^{1

2}, Anne E Cust^{1

3}, Alexander H R Varey^{1

2

4}, Sydney Ch'ng Md^{1

2

5}, Richard A Scolyer^{1

2

6

7}, John F Thompson^{1

2

5

8}

Affiliations

¹ Melanoma Institute Australia, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
² Faculty of Health and Medicine, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ The Daffodil Centre, The University of Sydney, a joint venture with Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, Australia.
⁴ Department of Plastic Surgery, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁵ Department of Melanoma and Surgical Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁶ Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and NSW Health Pathology, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁷ Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁸ Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.

PMID: 39245462
DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djae198

Abstract

The prognosis of a patient with a primary cutaneous melanoma is known to be related to the Breslow thickness of their tumor. This study sought to determine long-term (30-year) survival rates for the four AJCC 8th Edition T-categories by analyzing Australian registry data for 210,042 melanoma patients diagnosed from 1982-2014. The 30-year incidence rates of death due to melanoma and non-melanoma causes (with 95% confidence intervals) were 7.1% (CI 6.9-7.3%) and 32.8% (CI 32.3-33.3%), respectively. For T2 melanomas, the corresponding rates were 21.6% (CI 21.0-22.3%) and 35.6% (CI 34.7-36.6%), for T3 melanomas 34.2% (CI 33.4-35.1%) and 39.6% (CI 38.5-40.8%), and for T4 melanomas 44.3% (CI 43.2-45.3%) and 39.6% (CI 38.3-41.0%). A plateau in melanoma-related deaths occurred in T4 patients after 20 years but there were ongoing melanoma-related deaths for the other T-categories beyond 30 years. A progressive rise in the risk of death from other causes occurred across all T-categories.