Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug 5:14:4171-4176.
doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S299144. eCollection 2021.

Nation-Wide Trends in Incidence-Based Mortality of Patients with Ocular Melanoma in USA: 2000 to 2018

Srijan Valasapalli  1 , Achuta Kumar Guddati  2
Affiliations

Nation-Wide Trends in Incidence-Based Mortality of Patients with Ocular Melanoma in USA: 2000 to 2018

Srijan Valasapalli et al. Int J Gen Med. .

Abstract

Background: Ocular and orbit melanoma is a rare subtype of melanoma for which outcomes have not been adequately reported. We have analyzed the incidence-based mortality trends of ocular and orbit melanoma over 15 years in USA. Most ocular melanomas originate from the uvea and, to a lesser extent, from the conjunctiva. Primary orbital melanoma is exceedingly rare.

Methods: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was queried to find the incidence-based mortality for all patients diagnosed with ocular and orbit melanoma for the years 2000 to 2018. Results were grouped by gender and race (Caucasian/White, African American/Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Asian/Pacific Islanders). A paired t-test was used to determine the statistically significant difference between various subgroups (p < 0.05).

Results: Incidence-based mortality has been the highest in Caucasian/White patients from 2000 to 2018, followed by African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander patients. American Indian/Alaskan native patients appear to have the least mortality. There was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in mortality between Caucasian/White patients from 2000 to 2018, and African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander patients. The sample size for African American/Black and American Indian/Alaskan native patients was too low to discern a meaningful trend in mortality. Overall, it appears that Caucasian males and females have a far higher and worsening incidence-based mortality compared to other races.

Conclusion: Ocular melanoma and orbit melanoma are rare entities that are predominantly seen in Caucasian/White patients. This study shows that incidence-based mortality has been worsening for these patients in the past two decades. These entities have a poor prognosis and have not been studied extensively in immunotherapy trials. There is a need for new clinical trials to help improve mortality rates.

Keywords: incidence; mortality; ocular melanoma; trend.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work. The abstract was presented at ASCO 2019.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The trend of incidence-based mortality in Caucasian males and females from 2000 to 2018. Dotted lines represent linearized trend lines. Solid blue line represents Caucasian males and orange dashed line represents Caucasian females.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chang AE, Karnell LH, Menck HR. The national cancer data base report on cutaneous and noncutaneous melanoma: a summary of 84,836 cases from the past decade. The American college of surgeons commission on cancer and the American cancer society. Cancer. 1998;83(8):1664–1678. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19981015)83:8<1664::AID-CNCR23>3.0.CO;2-G - DOI - PubMed
    1. Beroukhim K, Pourang A, Eisen DB. Risk of second primary cutaneous and noncutaneous melanoma after cutaneous melanoma diagnosis: a population-based study. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2020;82(3):683–689. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2019.10.024 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Boyd N, Dancey JE, Gilks CB, et al. Rare cancers: a sea of opportunity. Lancet Oncol. 2016;17(2):e52–e61. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(15)00386-1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Mahendraraj K, Lau C, Lee I, et al. Trends in incidence, survival, and management of uveal melanoma: a population-based study of 7516 patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1973–2012). Clin Ophthalmol. 2016;10:2113–2119. doi: 10.2147/OPTH.S113623 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kaliki S, Shields CL. Uveal melanoma: relatively rare but deadly cancer. Eye (Lond). 2017;31(2):241–257. doi: 10.1038/eye.2016.275 - DOI - PMC - PubMed