Purpose: Uveal melanoma has a very poor prognosis despite successful local primary tumor treatment. In this study, we investigated prognostic factors that more accurately reflected the likelihood ofrecurrence and survival and delineated a prognostic model that could effectively identify different risk groups based on initial clinical parameters.
Materials and methods: Prognostic factors associated with distant recurrence, recurrence-free survival (RFS), progression-free survival, and overall survival from distant recurrence to death (OS2) were analyzed in 226 patients with stage I-III uveal melanoma who underwent primary local therapy.
Results: Forty-nine patients (21.7%) had distant recurrences, which occurred most frequently in the liver (87.7%). In a multivariate analysis, local radiotherapy improved RFS among patients with multiple recurrence risk factors relative to excision (not reached vs. 19.0 months, p=0.004). Patients with BRCA1-associated protein-1 (BAP1)‒negative primary tumors showed a longer RFS duration after primary treatments, while those with BAP1-negative metastatic tissues had a shorter OS2 compared to those with BAP1-positive tumors, both not statistically insignificance (RFS: not reached vs. 82.0 months, p=0.258; OS2: 15.7 vs. 24.4 months, p=0.216). Male sex (hazard ratio [HR], 3.79; p=0.012), a short RFS (HR, 4.89; p=0.014), and a largest metastatic tumor linear diameter ≥ 45 mm (HR, 5.48; p=0.017) were found to correlate with worse post-recurrence survival.
Conclusion: Risk factors could be used to classify uveal melanoma cases and subsequently direct individual treatment strategies. Furthermore, metastasectomy appears to contribute to improved survival outcomes.
Keywords: BAP1; Melanoma; Prognosis; Recurrence; Survival; Uveal neoplasm.