He MX, Song B, Jiang H, Hu XG, Zhang YJ, Zheng JM. Complete resection of isolated pancreatic metastatic melanoma: A case report and review of the literature. World J Gastroenterol 2010; 16(36): 4621-4624 [PMID: 20857537 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v16.i36.4621]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jian-Ming Zheng, MD, Department of Pathology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China. jmzheng1962@163.com
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Miao-Xia He, Hui Jiang, Jian-Ming Zheng, Department of Pathology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Bin Song, Xian-Gui Hu, Yi-Jie Zhang, Department of General Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Author contributions: He MX, Song B contributed equally to this paper and wrote the paper; He MX diagnosed the case and interpretation of the data; Song B carried the operation and follow-up of the patient; Hu XG and Zhang YJ supervised the operation; Jiang H helped to pathological diagnosis; all authors approved the final manuscript for publication.
Correspondence to: Jian-Ming Zheng, MD, Department of Pathology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China. jmzheng1962@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-81873689 Fax: +86-21-81873689
Received: June 4, 2010 Revised: June 29, 2010 Accepted: July 6, 2010 Published online: September 28, 2010
Abstract
Isolated metastatic melanoma of the pancreas is very rare. Currently, there is very limited experience with surgical resection of pancreatic metastasis. The potential benefit of metastasectomy can improve the quality of life and survival time of patients. We present a case of a 39-year-old Chinese male with a solitary pancreatic tumor which was considered a cystic benign lesion for years. Pathology and immunohistochemistry showed that the tumor in pancreatic tail was a metastasis from a malignant melanoma of the eyeball. No other metastastic foci were found in abdomen. The tumor was completely resected with combined distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy. The patient has survived 25 mo without any signs of local recurrence or other metastatic lesions after operation, indicating that complete surgical resection of a solitary metastatic melanoma of the pancreas can prolong the survival time of patients.
