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Survival in Patients With Uveal Melanoma in Europe
Gianni Virgili, MD;
Gemma Gatta, MD;
Laura Ciccolallo, MSc;
Riccardo Capocaccia, MSc;
Annibale Biggeri, MD;
Emanuele Crocetti, MD;
Jean-Michel Lutz, MD;
Eugenio Paci, MD; for the EUROCARE Working Group
Arch Ophthalmol. 2008;126(10):1413-1418.
Objective To estimate survival in patients in whom uveal melanoma was diagnosed between January 1, 1983, and December 31, 1994, in Europe.
Methods Survival analysis of data from 32 cancer registries in 16 European countries adhering to the European Cancer Registry for 5788 patients with uveal melanoma diagnosed between January 1, 1983, and December 31, 1994, with follow-up to 1999.
Results Five-year relative survival was 68.9% overall and remained stable with the period of diagnosis. Relative excess risk of death was 2.45 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.10-2.86) in patients aged 75 years or older compared with patients aged 54 years or younger and was slightly higher in male patients (relative excess risk, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.02-1.19) than in female patients. Survival was similar in Nordic countries (relative excess risk, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.87-1.21) compared with the United Kingdom (reference country) and was lower in eastern and western European countries (1.26; 1.05-1.52, and 1.25; 0.90-1.60, respectively) compared with the reference country.
Conclusions In this large series of patients with uveal melanoma, 5-year relative survival remained stable with the introduction of conservative treatment in individuals in whom uveal melanoma was diagnosed between 1983 and 1994. We found differences in survival between sexes and in European areas that should be investigated in studies that consider tumor characteristics at the individual level.
Author Affiliations: Departments of Oto-Neuro-Ophthalmological Surgical Sciences (Dr Virgili) and Statistics "G. Parenti" (Dr Biggeri), University of Florence, and the Biostatistics Unit (Dr Biggeri) and the Clinical and Descriptive Epidemiology Unit (Drs Crocetti and Paci), Center for Study and Prevention of Cancer, Scientific Institute of the Tuscany Region, Florence; the Epidemiology Unit, Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Milan (Dr Gatta and Ms Ciccolallo); Laboratory of Epidemiology, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome (Mr Capocaccia), Italy; and Registre Genevois des Tumeurs, Geneva, Switzerland (Dr Lutz).
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