Background: The aim of this study was to analyze the clinicopathologic features of melanoma in México as the demographics of melanoma are not well known in Mexican and Latin American people.
Materials and methods: A total of 1219 patients with cutaneous melanoma were analyzed through a retrospective database collected from a cancer referral institute, and the results were compared with developed countries.
Results: Median age was 57 years, and 713 (58.5 %) were females. The most common melanoma subtype was acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), which was observed in 538 (44.1 %) patients. Median Breslow thickness was 5.2 mm. Among 837 patients with complete data, the 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) was 52.3 %. Factors associated with worse DSS on univariate analysis were Breslow thickness (p < 0.001), recurrence (p < 0.001), ulceration (p < 0.001), positive margin (p < 0.001), ALM (p = 0.001), and male sex (p = 0.001). Multivariate analysis demonstrated Breslow thickness [hazard ratio (HR) 1.45, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.27-1.65; p < 0.001], positive margin (HR 1.25, 95 % CI 1.03-1.57; p = 0.018), recurrence (HR 9.56, 95 % CI 6.89-9.87; p = 0.002), ALM (HR 8.07, 95 % CI 6.77-8.95; p = 0.004), and male sex (HR 1.33, 95 % CI 1.06-1.68; p = 0.013) as independent risk factors for DSS.
Conclusion: Our patients had worse prognosis compared with data from the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. We found male sex and ALM as independent risk factors for worse survival, in addition to known risk factors.