Characteristics analyses and tumor staging proposal for primary malignant melanoma of the esophagus: a retrospective study.

This article focuses on primary malignant melanoma of the esophagus (PMME), a rare and aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis, and proposes a pathological tumor-node-metastasis (pTNM) staging system based on survival analysis of 179 patients. The study found that lower tumor invasion depth (T1a) and absence of regional lymph node metastasis (N0) were associated with better overall survival (OS), leading to a three-stage classification: Stage I (T1aN0M0), Stage II (T1b-4N0M0 and T1N1M0), and Stage III (T2-4N1M0 and TxNxM1). Surgery was recommended for early-stage patients, while its benefit for advanced-stage patients remained unclear; however, programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibitors showed potential in improving 3-year OS for patients with lymph node metastases. The proposed staging system may aid prognostic predictions and guide treatment decisions for PMME.