Malignant melanoma of the anorectum

Abstract

Summary Melanoma of the anorectum is a rare and highly malignant disease. Only 117 cases have been reported previous to this report in English medical literature. The clinicopathologic features of an additional 21 cases, encountered over a period of 25 years (1929 to 1954) at the Memorial Center, are described. Four more cases seen since 1955 are mentioned. These tumors can be mistaken easily for hemorrhoids or polyps and often their true nature is revealed by histologic examination. Is the preponderance of this tumor in Jewish and Italian people real or apparent? Often results of various methods of treatment are unpredictable, but in certain select cases which do not have distant metastases, preoperative external irradiation followed by abdominoperineal resection of the anorectum, or abdominoperineal resection of the anorectum without irradiation, seem to be the treatments of choice. The average survival time of patients in this group was 33 months. With the exception of one very unusual case, every patient in this series died of his original disease within five years, regardless of the type of therapy administered. Three other patients lived 44, 48 and 60 months.