Melanoma Survival Disadvantage in Young, Non-Hispanic White Males Compared With Females

Abstract

Male sex is associated with worse survival among white adolescents and young adults with melanoma after controlling for thickness and other prognostic factors. Continued public health efforts are necessary to raise awareness of the outcome of melanoma in young men. Further investigation of possible biological mechanisms that account for these sex differences is merited.

Sex disparities in melanoma outcomes: The role of biology

“…Most recently, a population-based study by Gamba et al focused on 26,107 individuals from the US National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry ages 15-39 years. They reported that young men had a 55% decrease in melanoma survival compared with age-matched young women, and concluded that male sex within all specific age groups and across all tumor thickness categories, histologic subtypes, and anatomic sites is associated with a disproportionate burden of melanoma deaths [13].…”

“…Significant differences exist in melanoma mortality between men and women. Women present more frequently with earlier stage tumors, experience longer survival and have a better outcome compared with men [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…Most recently, a population-based study by Gamba et al focused on 26,107 individuals from the US National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry ages 15-39 years. They reported that young men had a 55% decrease in melanoma survival compared with age-matched young women, and concluded that male sex within all specific age groups and across all tumor thickness categories, histologic subtypes, and anatomic sites is associated with a disproportionate burden of melanoma deaths [13].Stage specific survival was examined in a recent pooled analysis of 2672 patients with clinically localized (stage I/II) melanoma enrolled into four European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer prospective trials. In this analysis women were observed to have advantages in overall survival, melanoma-specific survival, and time to lymph node and distant metastases even http://dx.…”

Retrospective Analysis of Clinicopathological Characteristics of Pregnancy Associated Melanoma

“…In accordance with the literature, the progression of melanoma in women shows a slightly better prognosis than in men. Meanwhile, it has also been shown that men have worse disease free and overall survival and gender has an independent predictor of survival in melanoma [14][15][16]. Different hormone levels, UV exposed habits could also play a role in the genderspecific difference [17].…”

Clinical-epidemiological studies on cutaneous malignant melanoma : A register approach

“…This difference is mainly due to behavioural factors with women diagnosed earlier, resulting in a lower proportion of T3 and T4 CMM compared to men. Biological sex differences may also to some extent contribute to disparities in survival (55,56). The 5-year CMM-specific survival in younger women is now above 95% leaving little room for further large improvements.…”