Abstract
BACKGROUND: Females have been found to have a survival benefit over males in past studies. However, in early melanoma patients, this benefit occurred in only those aged >60 years. The 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) readjusted the melanoma staging system, specifically stage I. This study aims to verify whether the sex-specific benefit in females exists in different age groups according to the 8th edition of the staging system. METHODS: We collected the data of individuals diagnosed with skin melanoma between 2004 and 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Based on the 8th edition of the melanoma staging system, patients diagnosed with pathological stage T1a-T3a, N0 and M0 melanoma were enrolled. RESULTS: A total of 115,576 patients, including 62,938 male patients and 52,638 female patients, were enrolled in this study. The survival rates of males and females in each stage from IA-IIA were significantly different (P<0.001). In further analyses of each age group, it was found that the proportions of patients with stages IA, IB and IIA were significantly different in each age group. Cox analysis showed that females with stage IA in all age groups benefited significantly, but those in stage IB benefited only when they were aged >60 years. In stage IIA patients, there were significant differences between the <50 and 61-70 years age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Based on data from the SEER database, we found that according to the 8th edition of the AJCC melanoma staging system, females had a higher survival rate than males, and this difference was significant in all age groups in the stage IA group but fluctuated with age in the stage IB and IIA groups.