Melanoma-specific survival of patients with uveal melanoma and liver metastases diagnosed between 2005 and 2021.

Background

Uveal melanoma is the most common malignant tumor of the eye in adults. About half of the patients develop distant metastases, most commonly liver metastases (>90%). These are associated with poorer overall survival compared to patients with extrahepatic metastases.

Patients and methods

In this retrospective study, patients diagnosed with metastatic uveal melanoma between January 2005 and December 2021 and treated at the Center for Dermato-oncology at the University of Tübingen, were included. The total cohort was divided into two groups. Group 1, in which the first diagnosis of metastasis was between 2005 and 2015 and group 2 with first metastasis between 2016 and 2021. Melanoma-specific survival (MSS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method, test for differences was performed by the log-rank test.

Results

A total of 167 patients were included in the study. Since more than 90% of patients had developed liver metastases as their first site of metastasis, we focused our analysis on patients with liver metastases. Median MSS was 28 months (95% confidence interval (CI) (22.8-33.2 months)) in patients receiving first-line liver-directed therapy (

Conclusion

This analysis revealed that MSS has improved significantly in recent years. In our analysis, first-line liver-directed therapy was associated with improved survival compared to first-line systemic therapy. Further studies are urgently needed, for example, to investigate the combination of immune checkpoint inhibition or tebentafusp with liver-specific procedures from the outset.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s), 2024.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

T.A. received institutional grants from SkylineDx, Neracare, Novartis, Sanofi, and consulting fees from Novartis, Neracare, BMS, CeCaVa, and Chemosat, outside the submitted work. U.L. received grants from MSD, honoraria as a speaker for MSD, Novartis, Sun Pharma, Sanofi, Roche, Almirall Hermal, and travel support from Sun Pharma, Pierre-Fabre, outside the submitted work. A.F. served as a consultant to Novartis, MSD, BMS, Pierre-Fabre and Immunocore; received travel support from Novartis, BMS, Pierre-Fabre, and received speaker fees from Novartis, Delcath, BMS and MSD and reports institutional research grants from BMS Stiftung Immunonkologie, outside the submitted work. L.F. reports grants or contracts from Hookipa Pharma, SAKK/Immunophotonics, DFG Grant (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Philogen, and Mundipharma; consulting fees from Philogen, Sanofi, Novartis, BMS; participation on Data Safety Board University of Basel, all outside the submitted work. The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.