Comparative study between two different staging systems (AJCC TNM VS BALLANTYNE’S) for mucosal melanomas of the Head & Neck

BACKGROUND Mucosal melanoma (MM) of head and neck (H&N) is a rare entity with a quite poor prognosis. Ballantyne's staging system has been commonly used since 1970. In the 7th edition of the AJCC Staging Manual a new chapter for the staging of TNM Classification system for mucosal melanoma (MM) of the head and neck (H&N) has been introduced to reflect the particularly aggressive biological behavior of this neoplasm. The aim of this study was to analyze and compare among Ballantyne's staging system vs TNM H&N in terms of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in a consecutive population of patients with MM in a cancer centre. MATERIAL AND METHODS Descriptive analysis of demographic, clinical and pathological variables of MM of the Head & Neck were performed. We compared the survival curves for both systems according to the Kaplan-Meier method using the Log-rank test. RESULTS An up-staging migration effect from Ballantyne's localized disease to moderate-ly and very advanced disease according to AJCC staging system. The 5-year DFS and OS for Ballantyne's Localized Disease and AJCC Stage III were 31% and 36% vs. 47% and 50%, respectively. For locoregional disease the 5-year DFS / OS were 5% / 10% for Ballantyne's system vs. 13.8% / 17.8% and 0 / 0% for AJCC Stages IVA and IVB, respectively. CONCLUSIONS In this series, the TNM staging system for MM of the H&N predicted the prognosis of the disease when comparing with Ballantyne's system.