Estimation of incidence and prognosis of melanomas with brain metastases (MBM) at initial diagnosis based on a large cohort is lacking in current research.,This study aims to construct an effective prognostic nomogram for newly diagnosed MBM.,Patients diagnosed with melanomas from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program between 2010 and 2014 were enrolled in our study.,Risk factors predicting brain metastases (BM) were identified using logistic regression analysis.,Cox regression analysis was performed to identify prognostic factors of overall survival (OS).,Nomogram for estimating 6‐, 9‐, and 12‐month OS was established based on Cox regression analysis.,The discriminative ability and calibration of the nomogram were tested using C statistics, calibration plots, and Kaplan‐Meier curves.,Sixty‐two thousand three hundred and sixty‐nine melanoma patients were enrolled, including 928 with BM.,Sex, marital status, insurance status, subsite, surgery of primary sites, radiation, chemotherapy, bone metastases, liver metastases, and lung metastases were associated with MBM at initial diagnosis.,On multivariable Cox regression, the following eight variables were incorporated in the prediction of OS: age, unmarried status, absence of surgery to primary sites or unknown, absence of radiation or unknown, absence of chemotherapy or unknown, with bone metastases, with liver metastases, and with lung metastases.,The nomogram showed good predictive ability as indicated by discriminative ability and calibration, with the C statistics of 0.716 (95% CI, 0.695‐0.737).,The incidence and prognosis of MBM patients were well estimated in this study based on a large cohort.,The nomogram performed well and could be a useful tool to predict prognosis.,This study provided population‐based estimates of the incidence and prognosis for patients of melanoma with brain metastases at initial diagnosis.,The nomogram performed well and could be a useful tool to predict prognosis.
Women diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma have a survival advantage compared to men, which has been hypothesized to be due to difference in behavior and/or biology (sex hormones).,It remains controversial whether this advantage is dependent on age or stage of disease.,We sought to compare melanoma‐specific survival between females in pre, peri, and postmenopausal age groups to males in the same age group, adjusting for stage of disease.,This is a retrospective population‐based cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.,Patients diagnosed from 1 January 1992 through 31 January 2011 with primary invasive cutaneous melanoma were included in our cohort.,Melanoma‐specific survival was the main outcome studied.,Of the 106,511 subjects that were included, 45% were female.,Females in all age groups (18-45, 46-54, and ≥55) with localized and regional disease, were less likely to die from melanoma compared to males in the same age group.,Among patients with localized and regional disease, the relative risk of death due to melanoma increased with advancing age at diagnosis; this increase was more pronounced among females than males.,In contrast, we observed no female survival advantage among patients with distant disease and no effect of age on relative risk of death from melanoma.,Females with localized and regional melanoma have a decreased risk of death compared to males within all age groups.,Our data show no differences in survival between men and women with metastatic melanoma, indicating that the influence of sex on survival is limited to early stage disease but not confined to pre or perimenopausal age groups.