Treatment and prognosis of oral mucosal melanoma

To evaluate the treatment and prognosis of oral mucosal melanoma (OMM) and provide basic data for clinical treatment. Retrospective analysis of clinicopathological data on OMM from January 1976 to December 2005. Survival analysis was performed and Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare the effects of clinicopathological factors on survival using SPSS 18.0 software. A Cox model was applied for multivariate analysis. The 3-year and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates of 51 cases of OMM were 35.0% and 20.7%, respectively. Lymph node metastatic sites were predominantly at levels Ib-III (29/31, 93.5%). Patients of age ⩾55 years and size ⩾4 cm had a lower survival rate than those of aged <55 years and size <4 cm. The 3-year OS and 5-year OS of patients who underwent surgery combined with biotherapy or biochemotherapy (70.1% and 58.4%, respectively) were significantly higher than that of patients who underwent other therapeutic regimens (including surgery, chemotherapy, surgery combined with radiotherapy or surgery combined with chemotherapy) (25.0% and 12.5%, respectively). Multivariate analysis showed that surgery combined with biotherapy or biochemotherapy and neck dissection were effective treatments for OMM. Patients aged ⩾55 years had a worse prognosis than those aged <55 years. OMM has a poor prognosis, but multimodality treatment including surgery combined with biotherapy may improve the prognosis. In patients aged ⩾55 years with tumor size ⩾4 cm, increasing the scope of resection may be effective. Elective levels I-III neck dissection should be considered in TanyNOMO cases.