Endocrine influences on survival from malignant melanoma

A series of 1861 patients with malignant melanoma was reviewed to determine if there were endocrine influences on survival from the disease. No change in prognosis for melanoma patients was detected during times of hormonal upheaval such as puberty, menopause or estrogen administration. Parous women, however, irrespective of whether their pregnancies occurred prior to or coincident with diagnosis of melanoma, tended to present at an earlier clinical stage of the disease and have a higher 5‐year survival rate than non‐parous women. In addition, there was a statistically significant sex difference in prognosis, more women than men surviving 5 years. Two factors possibly contributing to this longer survival were that women first presented at an earlier clinical stage of the disease and had primary lesions confined to more prognostically favorable anatomical sites than men. The disease seemed to develop the capacity to metastasize more slowly in women than in men. However, the sex of the patient played an imortant role in prognosis only in patients first presenting with localized Stage I melanoma. Five‐year survival rate in women first presenting with metastases was less than in men first presenting with metastases and thus endocrine influences that may previously have delayed growth had no further effect on the behavior of the tumor. We concluded from the present study that there may be endocrine influences on the rate of formation of metastases and the distributions of anatomical sites of primary lesions.