Met with Ocular Melanoma Oncologist

[Lani]

Got some names of those who would know who the right person would be for a second opinion from my melanoma expert college friend. That caused me to go to ENTREZ PUB MED and lo and behold I found the following!

Once again, it pays to be a woman!!

Be sure to ask the expert who quoted you such a high risk or recurrence whether or not that figure was adjusted for gender. The following article is only 5 months old and may not have been noticed by him

The incidence of recurrence itself was not different but men suffered more metastases-- the time to recurrence was much shorter , the number of mets much higher and the death rate was twice as high in men than in women.


Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2013 Jan 23;54(1):652-6. doi: 10.1167/iovs.12-10365.
Gender differences in clinical presentation and prognosis of uveal melanoma.
Zloto O, Pe'er J, Frenkel S.
Source
Department of Ophthalmology, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
Abstract
PURPOSE:
We examined the clinical differences in manifestation and prognosis of uveal melanoma (UM) between men and women.
METHODS:
We evaluated 723 UM patients (325 males) who were treated between 1988 and 2010 at a national referral center. Men and women were compared regarding differences in annual distribution, age at diagnosis, size and intraocular location of the tumor, symptoms leading to diagnosis, recurrence, development of metastases, and mortality. Statistical analysis included ANOVA, Pearson correlations, and competing risks for melanoma-related mortality.
RESULTS:
Significant gender differences were not found for annual distribution, diagnosis age, tumor size, or recurrence rate. Tumors were located more frequently posterior to the equator in men than in women. However, men were less likely than women to complain of symptoms before the diagnosis (77.10% vs. 84.65%). Men suffered more metastases. In the subgroup of patients who had metastases, the time until development of metastases was shorter in men (metastases 1 and 5 years after diagnosis of UM: 26% vs. 12.96% and 84% vs. 50%, respectively). The cumulative incidence for melanoma-related mortality was higher for men, with an almost two-fold excess of male melanoma-related mortality in the first 10 years after the diagnosis of UM.
CONCLUSIONS:
Men have earlier and more frequent metastases in the first decade after the diagnosis of UM, a fact that may have significant implications in planning clinical trials to test adjuvant therapies to prevent metastasis.
PMID: 23197684 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]