Sex Disparity in Survival of Patients With Uveal Melanoma: Better Survival Rates in Women Than in Men in South Korea.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the survival rate of patients with uveal melanoma and sex disparity in this rate in South Korea.

METHODS

We extracted incident uveal melanoma patients using the Korea Central Cancer Registry (KCCR) database, which covered the entire population from 1999 to 2012 in South Korea. We estimated all-cause survival probabilities and cancer-specific survival probabilities of patients with uveal melanoma and compared these probabilities between subgroups (sex, tumor site, age at diagnosis, etc.) using Kaplan-Meier methods and log-rank tests. We fitted the Cox-proportional hazards models for all-cause death and cancer death to determine sex disparities in survival.

RESULTS

A total of 344 uveal melanoma patients (175 women, 51%) were ascertained. They comprised 283 patients with choroidal melanoma (82%) and 61 patients with ciliary body/iris melanoma (18%). The observed 5-year survival probability from all-cause death was 75% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 69%-79%); women with uveal melanoma showed higher survival probability (83% [95% CI: 76%-89%]) compared with men (66% [95% CI: 58%-73%], P < 0.01). After adjusting for age, year of diagnosis, tumor sites, and diagnostic verification method, the hazards for all-cause death and cancer death in women with uveal melanoma were lower than those in men (hazards ratio for cancer death = 0.50 [95% CI: 0.30-0.81]; hazards ratio for all-cause death = 0.39 [95% CI: 0.25-0.61]).

CONCLUSIONS

Women with uveal melanoma have better survival probabilities relative to men with uveal melanoma. Our findings show a comprehensive picture of survival probability in uveal melanoma cancer patients in Korea, which requires further investigation of mechanism of the sex disparity in uveal melanoma.