Head and neck tumours linked to increased mortality in CMM patients

Patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) whose tumour is located in the head and neck (HN) are at greater risk of all-cause and cancer-specific mortality than those with tumours found in the trunk, reveals a study.

A group of researchers conducted a multicentre, retrospective study involving 162,871 patients with histologically confirmed primary CMM (56.4 percent male, 74.0 percent aged ≥50 years) from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program (2000 to 2021). Of these, 23.0 percent died during a median follow-up of 6.3 years.

Multivariate analysis revealed a significantly increased risk of all-cause (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.08, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.05‒1.12) and cancer-specific mortality (aHR, 1.05, 95 percent CI, 1.02‒1.09) in the HN site compared with the trunk site.

On the other hand, sites in upper limb/shoulder ULS) and lower limb/hip (LLH) significantly correlated with a reduced risk of all-cause (ULS: aHR, 0.91, 95 percent CI, 0.89‒0.94; LLH: aHR, 0.89, 95 percent CI, 0.86‒0.92) and cancer-specific mortality (ULS: aHR, 0.79, 95 percent CI, 0.75‒0.84; LLH: aHR, 0.96, 95 percent CI, 0.92‒1.00) compared with the trunk.

These findings persisted in various subgroups and sensitivity analyses.

The study was limited by its retrospective design, which might have introduced selection bias, according to the researchers.