A study in Laryngoscope investigated which pediatric melanoma anatomical site had the worst outcomes, finding that head and neck (MHN) had a worse survival rate than any other body site.
Pediatric patients aged 0 to 21 years from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 18 registries between 1975 to 2016 were included for analysis. The researchers examined the demographics, treatment, and survival of pediatric melanoma of specific sites based on anatomical location coding from the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, Third Edition.
Upon analysis, the study included 4,561 cases of pediatric melanoma. Of this total, 854 (18.7%) were MHN. The other 3,707 (81.3%) cases were on the body (MOB). Hazard ratio (HR) for MHN vs MOB was 1.6 (95% CI, 1.3-2.1). Per the 2- and 5-year Kaplan-Meier, MHN survival was 94.6% and 90.7%, respectively, in contrast with 96.6% and 94.7%, respectively, for MOB.
On the categorization of sex, race, and age, it was found that children who were older, white, and male were of an increased risk of worse survival outcomes.Â
The findings revealed that, when it comes to pediatric melanoma survival outcomes, MHN were associated with worse outcomes than MOB.—Jessica Garlewicz
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Reference
Shi K, Camilon PR, Roberts JM, Meier JD. Survival differences between pediatric head and neck versus body melanoma in the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results program. Laryngoscope. 2021;131(2):E635-E641. doi:10.1002/lary.28711
