This study is a characterization of the treatment patterns and outcomes of a Brazilian melanoma cohort collected of 1848 patients enrolled between 1996 and 2015.,The superficial spreading subtype (35.1%) was the most prevalent, and the favoured anatomical location was the trunk (32.8%).,The most common clinical stage was I (27.6%).,The most frequent initial treatment was surgery (84.7%).,Sentinel node biopsy was positive in 23.3% of cases.,Chemotherapy was used to treat 298 patients (16.1%), immunotherapy for 67 (3.6%) and targeted therapy for 19 (1.0%).,Distant recurrence was commonly observed (22.5%) and the mutation status of the BRAF gene was verified in 132 cases, with 42.4% positivity in this subset of patients.,The melanoma specific actuarial 5-year survival for the cohort was 68.8%.,There was a higher 5-year survival observed in metastatic melanoma patients who received immunotherapy and/or targeted therapy (34.2%) compared patients treated with just chemotherapy (20.0%).,The survival analysis showed that sex, age, Breslow, clinical stage and distant recurrence were significant prognostic factors.,This study provides a real-world description of how the introduction of new therapies such as immunotherapy and BRAF inhibitors is changing treatment strategies for melanoma in developing countries.,The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-019-4336-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Oral mucosal melanoma is an uncommon, usually heavily melanin-pigmented, but occasionally amelanotic aggressive tumour with a poor prognosis.,Despite radical surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy, local recurrence and distant metastasis are frequent.,Microscopical examination is essential for diagnosis, and routine histological staining must be supplemented by immunohistochemical studies.,The aetiology is unknown, the pathogenesis is poorly understood, and the 5-year survival rate rarely exceeds 30%.,In most cases, oral mucosal melanoma arises from epithelial melanocytes in the basal layer of the epithelium and less frequently from immature melanocytes arrested in the lamina propria.,In both cases the melanocytes undergo malignant transformation, invade deeper tissues, and metastasize to regional lymph nodes and to distant sites.,Very rarely metastasis from skin melanoma may give rise to oral mucosal melanoma that may be mistaken for primary oral mucosal melanoma.,The pathogenesis of oral mucosal melanoma is complex involving multiple interactions between cytogenetic factors including dysregulation of the cKit signalling pathways, cell cycle, apoptosis, and cell-to-cell interactions on the one hand and melanin itself, melanin intermediates, and local microenvironmental agents regulating melanogenesis on the other hand.,The detailed mechanisms that initiate the malignant transformation of oral melanocytes and thereafter sustain and promote the process of melanomagenesis are unknown.