Publication
Histopathologic abundance of pigmentation correlates with disease-specific survival in malignant melanoma but is not independent of current AJCC pT stage.
Journal Paper/Review - Jul 20, 2023
Aebischer Valentin, Abu-Ghazaleh Amar, Metzler Gisela, Riedl Lena, Garbe Claus, Flatz Lukas, Eigentler Thomas Kurt, Forchhammer Stephan
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PubMed
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Journal
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Issn Electronic
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Brief description/objective
The increasing number of melanoma patients makes it necessary to develop best possible strategies for prognosis assessment in order to recommend appropriate therapy and follow-up. The prognostic significance of tumor cell pigmentation has not been fully elucidated. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained sections of 775 melanomas diagnosed between 2012 and 2015 were independently assessed for melanin pigment abundance by two investigators, and the impact on melanoma-specific survival was calculated. Unpigmented melanomas (n = 99) had a melanoma-specific survival of 67.7%, melanomas with moderate pigmentation (n = 384) had a melanoma-specific survival of 85.9%, and strongly pigmented melanomas (n = 292) had a melanoma-specific survival of 91.4% (p < .001). In an analysis of melanoma-specific survival adjusted for pT stage and pigmentation, we found a nonsignificant impact of pigmentation abundance with a hazard ratio of 1.277 (p = .74). The study presented here provides evidence in a German cohort that patients with pigmented melanomas have a more favorable prognosis than those diagnosed with nonpigmented melanomas. Moreover, the abundance of pigmentation already seems to provide a first prognostic estimate. However, it does not appear to provide significant additional value for prognostic assessment according to the AJCC 2017 pT classification.