Investigation of the reasons for improvement in the survival of patients with melanoma in Italy

Linked Article: Zamagni et al. Br J Dermatol 2022; 187:52–63.

Cutaneous malignant melanoma is a serious form of skin cancer that arises when pigment cells in the skin become malignant (cancerous). It can be more or less life-threatening depending on its thickness, which can show how deeply the melanoma cells have gone into the skin.

Survival with melanoma has been increasing for decades in Italy and many other countries, and researchers think this is because of progress with early detection of the disease, and tumours being discovered before they become very thick. This study wanted to find out whether this is the only explanation for the improvement in survival rates from melanoma in Italy between 2003 and 2017.

Findings showed that the thickness of melanomas continued to drop for men and women during the years studied and, in parallel, patient survival continued to improve. The improvement in survival, was more marked for men, and particularly for men with the thickest melanomas. Thanks to this, men had the same survival rates as women despite still having thicker melanomas than women.

Statistical tests confirmed that the improvement in survival depended on a factor other than the reduction in the thickness of tumours during this period of time. This factor is most likely to be the introduction of new types of treatment for thick melanomas (molecular targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors), which occurred in Italy in 2013.