Metastatic Ocular and Cutaneous Melanoma: A Comparison of Patient Characteristics and Prognosis

Abstract

Are metastatic ocular and cutaneous melanomas the same type of tumor? This question arises at the time of treatment of metastatic disease. Large studies of patients with metastatic cutaneous melanoma have shown a treatment response rate of greater than 21% with selected therapies. 1,2 A literature review suggests that only limited systemic evaluations of chemotherapy response of metastatic ocular melanoma have been reported. 3 We present results from a large database of multinational trials of chemotherapeutic treatment of metastatic melanoma that included patients with metastatic ocular melanoma. The trials were conducted by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and were designed to evaluate the efficacy and toxic effects of various drug treatments for metastatic melanoma. Data for 713 patients were available for analysis. The median time from the first diagnosis to entry to the study was 20 months. Fifty-one patients had primary ocular melanoma, 402 had primary cutaneous melanoma, and 260