Modifications of Callender's Classification of Uveal Melanoma at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

One hundred well-documented cases of uveal melanoma accessioned at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology before 1970 were reviewed and reclassified to identify changes made in the Callender classification. We compared the new classification with the original classification to determine the effect of the changes on the prediction of outcome for the patient after enucleation. Staff pathologists had originally classified 52 of the 100 cases as spindle-cell type melanoma.

Refined measurement of outcome for adjuvant breast carcinoma therapy.

Background: Traditional nonparametric statistical methods do not provide a quantitative measure of the lifetime benefit from adjuvant therapy. This deficiency makes it difficult to determine the long-term difference in impact between the two treatment arms of a clinical trial.

Methods: To assess the impact of breast carcinoma recurrence, parametric survival models were derived from two randomized, controlled clinical trials of adjuvant therapy for Stage II breast carcinoma.

The long-term clinical course of patients with cutaneous melanoma.

Background: The clinical course of cutaneous melanoma is associated with pathologic and clinical factors, such as thickness, ulceration, and location of tumor and gender of the patient. The authors used a parametric survival model that incorporated a cured fraction of patients to translate these factors into specific estimates of long-term outcome.

Methods: A cohort study was conducted of 5837 patients who were treated for localized cutaneous melanoma between 1978 and 1990 at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.