Journal Article

Impact of comorbidities on survival in melanoma patients

Conte, Pierfranco, Cassalia, Fortunato, Buja, Alessandra, Zorzi, Manuel, Mocellin, Simone, Trevisiol, Chiara, Rossi, Carlo Riccardo, Rugge, Massimo, Pantaleo, Ilaria, Belloni Fortina, Anna, Del Fiore, Paolo

2025

Overview

Background The increasing incidence of cutaneous melanoma (CM) is a significant public health issue. However, few studies have focused on how comorbidity patterns may influence the outcomes of CM patients. This study aimed to identify comorbidity patterns among CM patients and assess their impact on survival rates. Methods This retrospective population-based cohort study included all CM patients recorded in the regional Veneto Cancer Registry in 2019 and 2021. Comorbidity data (ICD-9-CM coding) were obtained from hospital discharge records and included 17 primary disease categories. Patients with at least two documented conditions were clustered via latent class analysis (LCA), with the optimal number of clusters determined via the Akaike information criterion (AIC). Results This population-based retrospective cohort study included 2,114 CM patients. Coexisting medical conditions were documented in 1,048 (49.6%) patients; multiple conditions were documented in 19.9% of the study cohort. Among these patients, the LCA identified three patterns: (1) cardio-endocrine-respiratory (20.96%); (2) pregnancy-psychosocial (29.97%); and (3) injury-multiorgan-multifactorial disorders (49.08%). Patients in the injury-multiorgan-multifactorial class had the highest mortality risk (HR = 3.08, 95% CI: 2.25–4.22). Conclusions Comorbidity class has a significant effect on the survival of CM patients. The incorporation of the comorbidity profile into clinical care strategies can improve prognostic accuracy and enhance patient management.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,BMC
• Subject: Adult / Aged / Aged, 80 and over / Analysis / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biomedicine / Cancer registry / Cancer Research / Care and treatment / Cohort study / Comorbidity / Development and progression / Diagnosis / Epidemiology / Female / Health care resources / Health care services: comorbidity / Health Promotion and Disease Prevention / Humans / Male / Medicine/Public Health / Melanoma / Melanoma - epidemiology / Melanoma - mortality / Melanoma, Cutaneous Malignant / Middle Aged / Oncology / Registries / Retrospective Studies / Skin Neoplasms - epidemiology / Skin Neoplasms - mortality / Surgical Oncology / Survival / Survival Rate / Time trends (Statistics) / Young Adult