The current causes of death in patients with malignant melanoma

The immediate cause of death was determined for all patients dying at Memorial Hospital from 1973 to 1976 with biopsy-proven malignant melanoma. One-third of patients died of a central nervous system involvement. Pulmonary involvement and infections were the next most common causes of death. The addition of chemotherapy or chemoimmunotherapy to surgery did not change the causes of death. The incidence of postmortem, documented CNS metastases has also increased since prior studies 10 yr ago.