ObjectiveAnorectal melanoma (AM) is a rare but aggressive tumour with limited information in the existing literature. This study aimed to assess the effect of surgical treatment for AM and predict the prognosis of affected patients.DesignA retrospective cohort study.SettingData of patients diagnosed with AM between 1975 and 2016 in the USA were collected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.ParticipantsThis study enrolled a total of 795 patients with AM from the SEER database and the validation cohort comprised 40 patients with AM enrolled from Chinese institutes.Primary and secondary outcome measuresOverall survival (OS) and AM-specific survival (AM-SS).ResultsA total of 795 patients with AM diagnosed between 1975 and 2016 were enrolled in this study. Data over the past four decades showed a trend of increase in incidence rate. A nomogram based on a multivariate Cox regression model was generated to predict AM-SS. The C-index of the nomogram was 0.74 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.77) on internal verification. In the validation cohort, the C-index of the nomogram was 0.72 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.76). The results of propensity score matching (PSM) analysis showed that patients who underwent surgical treatment achieved significant survival (OS: log-rank=17.41, p<0.001; AM-SS: log-rank=14.55, p<0.001). Patients who underwent surgery were stratified into local and extended surgery subgroups. AM-SS and OS were also compared after PSM, but the results were not significantly different between the two surgery subgroups (all p>0.05).ConclusionsThe nomogram based on the analysis of SEER data showed good performance in predicting OS and AM-SS. Patients with AM can benefit from surgery; however, extensive surgery and appendectomy may not improve AM-SS or OS.

Background: The long non-coding RNA SNHG7 is upregulated in many types of cancer and plays a role as an oncogene. However, its overall predictive ability in human cancer prognosis has not been assessed using existing databases. Therefore, further study of its prognostic value and clinical significance in human malignancies is warranted.Methods: We systematically collected relevant literature from multiple electronic document databases about the relationship between SNHG7 expression level and prognosis in patients with solid cancers. We further screened them for eligibility. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the prognostic value. Odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% CIs were collected to evaluate the relationship between the expression of SNHG7 and clinicopathological features, including lymph node metastasis (LNM), tumour size, tumour node metastasis (TNM) stage and histological grade.Results: Fourteen original studies involving 971 patients were enrolled strictly following the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The meta-analysis showed that SNHG7 expression was significantly correlated with poor overall survival (HR = 1.93, 95% CI: 1.64–2.26, p < 0.001) in human cancer patients. In addition, the pooled OR indicated that overexpression of SNHG7 was associated with earlier LNM (OR = 1.83, 95% CI: 1.44–2.32; P <0.001), and advanced TNM stage (OR = 1.82, 95% CI: 1.44–2.30; P <0.001).Meanwhile, there was no significant heterogeneity between the selected studies, proving the reliability of the meta-analysis results.Conclusions: High SNHG7 expression may predict poor oncological outcomes in patients with multiple human cancers, which could be a novel prognostic biomarker of unfulfilled clinicopathological features. However, further high-quality studies are needed to verify and strengthen the clinical value of SNHG7 in different types of cancer.