Department of Dermatology, University of Florence, Italy.
Melanoma Res. 2012 Oct;22(5):402-5. doi: 10.1097/CMR.0b013e3283577b96.
Cutaneous melanoma is a malignant neoplasia with several demographic and histopathological prognostic factors. Many studies stress that the head and neck region has a worse prognosis compared with other localizations, but the reasons for this worse prognosis are unclear. Therefore, the aim of our study is to analyse the poor prognosis of head and neck melanoma (HNM) with respect to the other anatomical sites, considering the face and neck (F&N) and the scalp separately. We carried out a retrospective analysis of 757 melanoma patients. In particular, we studied the prognostic impact of different melanoma skin localizations (head and neck, trunk, upper extremities and lower extremities). Afterwards, we divided HNM into two subgroups, F&N and scalp, to evaluate their impact in the HNM prognosis. Data showed a significantly lower 5-year overall survival probability for HNM (78.9 versus 93.1% for other body sites; P=0.05). Moreover, on analysing the two anatomical areas considered among HNM, we observed a 5-year overall survival of 81.8% for F&N and 66.7% for scalp. HNM has different and worse prognostic features with respect to other sites, but this trend is not only because of scalp melanoma but is also determined by F&N melanoma, which we believe to be underestimated until now.
皮肤黑色素瘤是一种具有多种人口统计学和组织病理学预后因素的恶性肿瘤。许多研究强调，头颈部区域的预后比其他部位差，但导致这种较差预后的原因尚不清楚。因此，我们的研究旨在分析头颈部黑色素瘤（HNM）相对于其他解剖部位（面部和颈部（F&N）以及头皮）的不良预后。我们对 757 名黑色素瘤患者进行了回顾性分析。特别是，我们研究了不同黑色素瘤皮肤定位（头颈部、躯干、上肢和下肢）对预后的影响。之后，我们将 HNM 分为两个亚组，F&N 和头皮，以评估它们对 HNM 预后的影响。数据显示，HNM 的 5 年总生存率明显较低（78.9%比其他身体部位的 93.1%；P=0.05）。此外，在分析 HNM 中考虑的两个解剖区域时，我们观察到 F&N 的 5 年总生存率为 81.8%，头皮为 66.7%。HNM 与其他部位相比具有不同的、更差的预后特征，但这种趋势不仅是由于头皮黑色素瘤，还取决于 F&N 黑色素瘤，我们认为迄今为止 F&N 黑色素瘤被低估了。
