Epidemiological comparison of cases of malignant melanoma of the Hospital Universitario Austral (HUA) vs. Argentine Registry Cutaneous Melanoma (RAMC)

Resumen

Abstract
We performed an epidemiological comparison between patients with malignant melanoma from the Hospital Universitario Austral (HUA) and patients with malignant melanoma from the records of the Argentine Cutaneous Melanoma Database (RAMC). The purpose of the study was
to recognize the epidemiologycal profile of our patients and compare it with that of the patients enrolled within the RAMC; to identify the risk groups within the HUA; and to define if there are any differences in relation to the diagnosis taking as main indicators both the Breslow thickness index and tumor ulceration by the time of diagnosis.

Materials and methods: We registered 197 cases of malignant melanoma at AUH, while 3238 cases were recorded by RAMC, assuming the latter to be the domestic standard. We selected the following epidemiological data: 1) gender distribution, 2) age distribution, 3) Breslow thickness index, and 4) tumor ulceration. As descriptive statistical measures we performed: mean, standard deviation and proportions. To analyze numeric variables we used Student-t tests for two independent groups; and to analyze categorical or ordinal variables we conducted chi-square test. The p-value was established at 0.05.
Results: The results showed that overall sex and age distribution are similar in both groups. However, age-stratified distribution showed a higher percentage of both male and female younger patients at AUH in relation to RAMC. The time of diagnosis proved to be earlier at AUH
than RAMC; and as for tumor ulceration, we did not find any differences.
Conclusion: We considered this comparison with the Argentine Cutaneous Melanoma Database highly important, since this enabled us to know our population, thus identifying their risk factors

(Dermatol Argent 2010;16(1):34-38).

Keywords: malignant melanoma