Clinical Characteristics of 582 Patients with Uveal Melanoma in China

Yue Ming Liu; Yang Li; Wen Bin Wei; Xiaolin Xu; Jost B Jonas

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0144562

Clinical Characteristics of 582 Patients with Uveal Melanoma in China

PLoS One. 2015 Dec 8;10(12):e0144562. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0144562. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Yue Ming Liu¹, Yang Li¹, Wen Bin Wei¹, Xiaolin Xu², Jost B Jonas^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Tongren Eye Center, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Beijing Ophthalmology and Visual Science Key Lab, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
² Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Beijing Ophthalmology and Visual Science Key Lab, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Ophthalmology, Medical Faculty Mannheim of the Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, Germany.

Abstract

Objective: To assess clinical characteristics, treatment and survival of patients with uveal melanoma in China.

Methods: The retrospective study included all patients with malignant uveal melanoma who were consecutively examined in the study period from January 2005 and June 2015 in the Beijing Tongren hospital.

Results: The mean age of the 582 patients (295(50.7%) women) was 44.6±12.6 years (range: 5-77 years). The tumors were located most often in the superior temporal region (in 117(21.5%) patients) and least common in the inferior region (in 31(5.7%) patients). In 548(94.2%) patients, the tumors were located in the choroid, in 33(5.7%) patients in the ciliary body, and in one (0.2%) patient in the iris. Treatment included episcleral brachytherapy (415(71.3%) patients), local tumor resection (48(8.2%) patients) and primary enucleation (119(20.4%) patients). In 53 individuals out of the 415 patients with primary brachytherapy, episcleral brachytherapy was followed by enucleation, due to an increasing tumor size or due to uncontrolled neovascular glaucoma. Median follow-up time was of 30 months (range: 1-124 months; mean: 34.8 ± 24.4 months). Overall survival rate at 5 and 10 years was of 92.7% and 85.1%. Younger age (P = 0.017), tumor location in the nasal meridian(P = 0.004), smaller tumor size (P<0.001), hemispheric tumor shape (P = 0.025), histological tumor cell type (spindle-cell type versus epitheloid cell type;P = 0.014), and type of treatment (episcleral brachytherapy versus local tumor resection and versus primary enucleation; P<0.001) were significantly associated with the overall survival in univariate analysis, while in multivariate analysis only smaller tumor size was significantly (P<0.001; RR: 4.75; 95% confidence interval: 2.11,10.7) associated with better overall survival.

Conclusions: In this study on clinical characteristics of uveal melanoma of a larger group of patients from China, the onset age was considerably younger and survival rate better than in studies from Western countries. Tumor size was the most significant factor for survival.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Child
Child, Preschool
China
Female
Humans
Male
Melanoma / pathology*
Middle Aged
Uveal Neoplasms / pathology*
Young Adult

Grants and funding

Supported by Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Clinical Medicine Development of Special Funding Support, code: ZYLX201307; National Natural Science Foundation of China, NO. 81272981; Beijing Natural Science Foundation, NO. 7151003, 7112031; Advanced Health Care Professionals Development Project of Beijing Municipal Health Bureau (No. 2014-2-003). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.