WEDNESDAY, Jan. 15, 2025 -- The female survival advantage seen in melanoma is mainly a result of an indirect effect of sex mediated by clinicopathological features, according to a study published online Jan. 12 in JNCI Cancer Spectrum.

Noting that women have a survival advantage in melanoma, Tharani Murali, from the School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and colleagues examined the relationship between sex, clinicopathologic variables, and melanoma-specific survival in 1,753 single primary melanomas.

The researchers found that the effect of sex on survival was largely explained by differences in clinicopathological features of tumors at diagnosis. Differences in age at diagnosis, Breslow thickness, ulceration, mitoses, and site accounted for 86.5 percent of the effect of sex on melanoma survival.

"Our results indicate that the female survival advantage in melanoma is largely due to mediating effects of clinicopathologic features of male and female tumors at the time of diagnosis," the authors write.