ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia 2018 February;153(1):11-8

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-0488.16.05336-0

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Predictive factors in non-melanoma skin cancers treated with electrochemotherapy

Roberta ROTUNNO ✉, Giovanni PAOLINO, Carmen CANTISANI, Carmen SOLITO, Stefano CALVIERI, Pietro CURATOLO

Dermatologic Clinic, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

BACKGROUND: The management of non-melanoma skin cancers may benefit from alternative treatments and in this spectrum electrochemotherapy plays a pivotal role. The aim was to describe the predictive features of patients with cutaneous carcinomas treated with electrochemotherapy, with regard to clinical, pathological and instrumental predictors.
METHODS: We analyzed disease free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS) for each patient. Assuming that the effects of the predictor variables are constant over time, the independent predictive factors were assessed by Cox-proportional hazards regression in both univariate and multivariate analyses.
RESULTS: We can assess that in the brief-term (DFS), the patients’ age, tumor-site, tumor size, photo-type and the dose of the cytotoxic drug showed a statistical significant better behavior. However, in the multivariate, only the variables tumor’s site (P=0.01) and tumor appearance (P=0.03) reached the statistical significance. In the long-term, female patients, patients with a median age ≤70 years, with III-IV photo types and patients, which received a dosage of bleomycin, ≤14 mg/m2 presented a significant better behavior. However in the multivariate analysis a significance was maintained for the variables tumor’s appearance (HR: 11.6; 95% CI: 11.56 to 27.5; P=0.01), infiltration (HR:0.11; 95% CI: 0.012 to 0.9; P=0.04), electrode type (HR:0.19; 95% CI:0.04 to 0.8; P=0.03) and photo type (HR:5.7; 95% CI:1.3 to 24.3; P=0.01).
CONCLUSIONS: According to our results, in electrochemotherapy different individual variables can have an important influence, which shows how this treatment could improve. The refinement of the technique and the optimization of patients’ selection has the aim to improve the therapeutic response.

KEY WORDS: Skin neoplasms - Electrochemotherapy - Melanoma