Clinical outcomes of localized melanoma of the foot: a case-control study.

The controversy over whether melanoma of the foot has a poorer prognosis than melanoma of the leg remains unresolved. This investigation used a case-control design to address this issue. This design consisted of a survival analysis of 119 cases with localized melanoma of the foot and 238 controls with localized melanoma of the leg that were matched on prognostic factors including tumor thickness, ulceration, surgical treatment, gender, year of diagnosis, and age. There was a statistically significant difference between the survival rates of cases and controls. The 5-year survival rate for cases was 74.3% compared to 85.2% for controls. At 10 years, the survival rate was 63.6% for cases and 77.2% for controls. Cases experienced a higher percentage of distant recurrences than controls. These results imply that patients with melanoma of the foot have a poorer survival than patients with melanoma of the leg after controlling for prognostic factors.