Discordance of pathological thin melanoma thickness and T stage in SEER registry: impacts on clinical management and research directions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Ultrathin melanoma was previously demonstrated to have higher risk for melanoma-specific mortality using SEER database. However, these guideline-changing conclusions has been recently challenged by miscoding of thickness. This present study was performed to assess the prognosis of thin and ultrathin melanoma using only surgically-treated, pathologically confirmed and after removal of discordant cases.

Methods

Melanoma patients from SEER database who were initially diagnosed with histologically confirmed and surgically treated melanoma from 1998 to 2012 were included. Subjects with discordance between T stage and tumor thickness were excluded. Kaplan-Meier curves, log-rank test and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models were used.

Results

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SUBMITTER: Wang Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5716686 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature