Malignant melanoma of nasal cavity: report of 16 Japanese patients.
BACKGROUND
Primary malignant melanoma of the nasal cavity is a rare disease that has a poor prognosis. There are significant racial differences in the incidence of melanomas in the nasal cavity.


METHODS
Sixteen Japanese patients treated at the Hospital of Tokyo University were reviewed retrospectively.


RESULTS
Fourteen patients were treated with surgery. Two patients received treatment with radiotherapy alone. Seven patients had microscopically negative surgical margins and seven patients had positive surgical margins. The 2- and 5-year actuarial survival rates for all patients were 63.6 and 31.8%, respectively. No statistically significant difference could be shown in the overall survival rate between patients with positive surgical margins and those with negative surgical margins.


CONCLUSIONS
Clinical features of nasal melanoma in Japanese are not different from nasal melanoma in Caucasians. The negative surgical margins were not predictive of a better prognosis.
Nakaya
Muneo
M
Department of Otolaryngology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1 Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan. muneo@interlink.or.jp
Mochiki
Masato
M
Takeuchi
Satoshi
S
Yuge
Tadashi
T
Nakao
Kazunari
K
Nakamura
Naoki
N
Sugasawa
Masashi
M
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D009296:Nasal Cavity; D009297:Nasal Mucosa / Q000473:pathology; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D009669:Nose Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate