Mortality after deferral of treatment or no treatment for choroidal melanoma

Purpose: To report mortality of patients who were eligible for enrollment in the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) clinical trials of medium-sized choroidal melanoma or large-sized choroidal melanoma but chose to defer treatment or receive no melanoma treatment. Design: Prospective nonrandomized multicenter cohort study as an adjunct to COMS randomized clinical trials. Methods: Patient follow-up procedures included examinations, correspondence, telephone contacts, and National Death Index searches. Primary outcome was patient death measured by all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes were melanoma treatment and melanoma metastasis. Results: Of 77 patients eligible for COMS clinical trials who chose to defer or receive no melanoma treatment, 61 were appropriate candidates and 45 (74%) enrolled in the natural history study (NHS). In all, 42 patients (42 eyes) had medium melanoma, and the median follow-up was 5.3 years (range, 4–10.7 years). In all, 22 patients (52%) had subsequent melanoma treatment, and 20 (48%) had no melanoma treatment. For the 42 patients, Kaplan–Meier estimate of 5-year mortality was approximately 30% [95% confidence interval (CI), 18%–47%]. For COMS medium melanoma trial, 5-year mortality was 18% (95% CI, 16%–20%), not statistically significantly different from the NHS patients. After adjusting for differences in age and longest basal diameter, the 5-year risk of death for NHS patients versus COMS trial patients was 1.54 (95% CI, 0.93–2.56). Three patients had large melanoma. Melanoma metastasis was confirmed or suspected in 8 (42%) of 19 deaths. Conclusion: Greater mortality and higher risk of death for NHS patients are probative but not conclusive evidence of a beneficial, life-extending effect of medium melanoma treatment

Quality of life and cancer-related needs in patients with choroidal melanoma

AIMS: To assess quality of life (QoL) indices and their associations with treatment modality, sociodemographics, and cancer-related needs in choroidal melanoma patients. METHODS: Patients (N=99) treated at the University of California, Los Angeles for choroidal melanoma within the prior 5 years (M = 2.05) completed questionnaires assessing demographics, cancer-related needs, vision-specific QoL, depressive symptoms, and concern about recurrence. Visual acuity, comorbidities, treatment modality (radiotherapy, enucleation), and years since diagnosis were gathered from medical records. Primary analyses were multiple regressions. RESULTS: Although concern about cancer recurrence was elevated, QoL was better than in other oncology samples and comparable to healthy samples on some outcomes. Enucleation was associated with worse vision-specific QoL, and presence of comorbid diseases was associated with worse vision-specific QoL, depressive symptoms, and concern about cancer recurring (all ps<.05). Patients who experienced at least one stressful life event in the past year (versus no events) reported more depressive symptoms (p<.01). Report of more unmet cancer needs was associated with worse vision-specific QoL, depressive symptoms and more concern about recurrence (all ps<.05), uniquely explaining 5%–12% of the variance. CONCLUSIONS: For choroidal melanoma patients an average of two years after treatment, number of physical comorbidities and unmet cancer needs were the strongest correlates of poorer QoL