Prior Pregnancy and Melanoma Survival

To the Editor.—  Do prior pregnancies influence survival of women with malignant melanoma? In the June 1985 issue of the Archives, Lederman and Sober¹ refuted this, and questioned the results of Hersey et al,² who found a greater survival rate in women older than age 50 years who had been pregnant before their melanoma, compared with nulliparous women.Our clinical studies,³ however, argue for the existence of a certain influence. From the cohort of 2606 patients with melanoma who were seen by the German Melanoma Group (Freiburg, West Germany), we studied the survival rate of 1087 clinical stage I women, with or without pregnancies prior to their cutaneous melanoma. We found a statistically significant higher survival rate in patients younger than age 50 years who had been pregnant five or more times before. In this group, 90% of the women had survived after eight years, but this