title: The impact of selected factors on early diagnosis of multiple primary cancers in patients with uveal melanoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To find differences between a group of patients with intraocular melanoma and another primary cancer and a group of patients with no identifiable second primary cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  The analysis involved 240 participants, selected from patients who were treated for uveal melanoma at the Department of Ophthalmology and Ocular Oncology of the Jagiellonian University Medical College between the year 1998 and 2007. Among those patients 97 were diagnosed with one or more independent primary cancers. Those patients were subject to a comparative analysis with a second group of 143 patients who had uveal melanoma with no identifiable second primary cancer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE GROUP OF PATIENTS WITH INTRAOCULAR MELANOMA AND ANOTHER PRIMARY CANCER, AND THE GROUP OF PATIENTS WITH UVEAL MELANOMA (BUT WITHOUT ANOTHER DIAGNOSED PRIMARY NEOPLASM) WERE AS FOLLOWS: more common family history of cancer, better education, living in cities (especially with a population over 500 thousand), previous surgery except for uveal melanoma, and two or less than two pregnancies in the case of women.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This analysis revealed that more common family history of cancer, better education, living in cities (especially with a population over 500 thousand), previous surgery, except for uveal melanoma, and two or less than two pregnancies in the case of women, were associated with a higher rate of detection of multiple primary cancers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Clinic of Ophthalmology and Ocular Oncology, Jagiellonian University, Medical College, Kraków, Poland.
authors.forename: Marzena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mierzwa-Dobranowska
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Clinic of Ophthalmology and Ocular Oncology, Jagiellonian University, Medical College, Kraków, Poland.
authors.forename: Bożena
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Romanowska-Dixon
keywords: multiple primary cancers; uveal melanoma