Two-year patientreported outcomes following treatment of uveal melanoma

Purpose Treatment of uveal melanoma can impair patients' psychological well-being. We evaluated patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) of anxiety, depression, and quality of life (QoL) over 2 years following treatment in a consecutive sample of uveal melanoma patients, compared observations to population normative values and examined whether outcomes differed according to patients' age, gender, and whether or not they were treated by enucleation or had a poor prognosis (presence of monosomy 3).

Design Prospective longitudinal study. Participants Patients (N = 411) with uveal melanoma treated between 2008 and 2011. Methods Self-report questionnaire study. We compared mean PROMs scores obtained 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years after treatment to published population normative values using 2-sample t-tests, and tested the association of these scores with gender, age, treatment by enucleation, and monosomy 3 using mixed-model ANOVAs.

Results On QoL and depression, patients were similar to or better than normative values at all time points, but there was some evidence that females were more anxious than female normative values (Ps<0.001–o0.05). Younger patients (P<0.01) and female patients (P<0.01) were the most anxious overall. Enucleation was not associated with PROMs. Patients with monosomy 3 showed more depressed mood at all the three time points (P<0.05).

Conclusions Patients treated for uveal melanoma can expect, within 6 months of treatment, to have a QoL that is similar to that of the general population. Younger female patients and patients with monosomy 3 are more likely to be distressed, and clinicians will need to be alert to this.