Journal of Cancer and Tumor International

The primary incidence of skin melanoma in the Republic of Belarus over 25 years (from 1991 through 2015) has increased 3.3-fold (from 2.6 to 9.0 per 100,000 population). A higher level of urban population incidence, a large proportion of people affected at the employable age. In 2015 the proportion of prognostically unfavourable pT3-pT4 neoplasms was 38.2%. Metastatic disease was detected in 12.4% of the patients.

Methodology: Material of the paper is based on the data of Belarusian Cancer Registry using the principles of data collection, monitoring and processing recommended by the IARC.

Results: The proportion of stage IB neoplasms made up almost one third of the cases assigned to stage I. Of the cases assigned to stage II, the proportion of neoplasms with a high prognostic index of metastatic spread (T3b-T4b) was more than 70%. The recurrence rate is 15.1% even at melanoma invasion depth of up to 1 mm (with ulceration), while it rises to 32.4% at pT2b. The cumulative 5-year disease-specific survival of all patients in 2005 was 54.1 ± 1.5%, and in 2015 it was 64.0±2.2%.

Conclusion: A strong correlation is observed between survival of patients and the extent of invasion and ulceration of the primary focus. For metastasis-free pT1a melanoma, the 5-year survival was 92.2%, for T1b – 79.9%, for pT2b – 72.5%, for pT3b – 55.1%, for pT4b – 49.1%. According to the Cancer Registry data, ulceration of the primary neoplasm is frequently observed: it amounts to 41.1% of the cases with melanoma invasion depth up to 2 mm (pT2), to 55.9% with 2-4 mm (pT3) and to 76.3% with the tumor thickness of more than 4 mm (pT4).