Hypothesis: The clinical treatment of patients with stage IV melanoma according to criteria of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) is controversial because the 5-year survival rate is approximately 5%. Specific clinicopathologic factors are predictive of survival following curative surgery.
Design: Cohort analysis of 1574 successive patients undergoing surgical resection of metastatic melanoma for a 29-year period. Patients received follow-up on a routine basis with serial examinations and radiographic studies. The median follow-up time was 19 months (range, 1-382 months).
Setting: Tertiary cancer center.
Patients: Surgical resection was performed in 1574 patients. The decision to perform surgery was individualized for each patient.
Intervention: The technique of surgical resection was based on the site of metastasis. Main Outcome Measure Computer-assisted database with statistical analyses using log-rank tests and Cox regression models.
Results: Of the 4426 patients with AJCC stage IV melanoma, 1574 (35%) underwent surgical resection; 970 (62%) were men, with a median age of 50 years. Of the primary melanomas, 46% arose on the trunk, and 56% were Clark level IV or V with a median thickness of 2.2 mm. We found 697 patients (44%) to have AJCC stage III melanoma (lymph node) prior to the development of stage IV metastases. The most common site for resection was the lung (42%), followed by the skin or lymph node (19%) and the alimentary tract (16%). Of our patients, 877 (56%) had melanoma at a single site. The 5-year survival rate was significantly (P<.001) better for patients with a solitary melanoma (mean +/- SD, 29% +/- 2%) than those with 4 or more metastases (n = 147; mean +/- SD, 11% +/- 3%). Skin and lymph node metastases had the most favorable survival rate (median, 35.1 months). Multivariate analyses identified an earlier primary tumor stage (I vs II) (P<.001), an absence of intervening stage III metastases (P =.02), solitary metastasis (P<.001), and a long (>36 months) disease-free interval from AJCC stage I or II to stage IV (P =.005) as predictive of survival.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the benefit of surgical resection for advanced-stage melanoma. Patients with limited sites and numbers of metastases should be considered for curative resection regardless of the location of the disease.