Real-World Treatment Patterns and Recurrence Rates in Cutaneous Melanoma Patients – Single Romanian Center Experience

Abstract

"Introduction. Cutaneous melanoma is one of the deadliest cancers, and its incidence has dramatically increased over the last 20 years. Its mortality has decreased slightly worldwide over the past 10 years, largely due to new approaches such as sentinel node biopsy and new systemic treatments. Materials and method. This retrospective study comprises 151 cases of cutaneous melanoma (stages 0, I, II, and III) diagnosed between 2003 and 2019 in Romanian patients at a single center. It provides epidemiological information (stage at diagnosis, histological aspects, status of BRAF mutation, pattern of recurrence) and shows survival parameters associated with systemic adjuvant treatments and first and second-line therapies for recurrence. Results. Compared to other European countries, Romanian patients with cutaneous melanomas have different characteristics: younger age (50 years median age at diagnosis), more advanced stages (70% for male and 44% for female patients), and BRAF mutation in 70% of cases. More than 50% of the patients with stages IIB, IIC, and III received adjuvant IFN-α2b after complete resection. However, there were similar outcomes in terms of median disease-free survival (DFS) (33.46 months for the entire cohort) independently of adjuvant systemic treatments administered in the interferon alpha-2b era. The 3-year DFS and OS rates for stages IIB and IIC were similar to those of stage III. The prognosis was worse for BRAF mutated melanoma in terms of DFS and OS, independently of clinical stages. Conclusion. Our study demonstrates that stages IIB and IIC have the same pattern of recurrence and similar outcomes to those of stage III and could benefit from adjuvant systemic treatment as shown in KEYNOTE-716 clinical study."