Abstract
The Prognosis and Statistical Investigation Committee of the Japanese Skin Cancer Society is conducting a survey of malignant melanoma patients in Japan, and has collected 2978 cases from 2005 to 2013. The average follow-up is 32.0 months. The details were as follows : male/female ratio : 1392/1583, age : average 63.6 years, TNM staging : Tis-17%/Ⅰ-20%/Ⅱ-24%/Ⅲ-22%/Ⅳ-11%, disease-specific 5-year survival rate of each TNM stages : Tis-99%, 1a-96%, 1b-92%, 2a-85%, 2b-80%, 2c-61%, 3a-74%, 3b-58%, 2c-39%, 4-21%. The most common type of recurrence was distant failure, and accounted for 51% of all recurrences. The next common types were lymph node metastasis (29%), in-transit metastasis (13%), and local recurrence (7%). The median time to recurrence was about 12 months. Patients with stage 1 were shown to have longer time to recurrence compared with stages 2 and 3.[Skin Cancer (Japan) 2014 ; 29 : 189-194]
