A Case of Malignant Melanoma Metastasis to the Gallbladder

Shigenori Sugihara, Shinichi Uemura, Hironori Kobayashi, Yoshiaki Ikuta, Takayuki Kaneko and Tetsuhiro Egami

Department of Surgery, Shimonoseki Kousei Hospital

The patient was a 43-year-old man who was admitted with a complaint of epigastralgia. Clinical examinations revealed gallbladder polyps, so a laparoscopic cholecystectomy was carried out. The surgical specimen had eight blackish polypoid lesions 2-5 mm in diameter. Histological examination revealed malignant melanoma of the gallbladder, and a nevus was observed on the patient's head. Excisional biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of malignant melanoma, and brain metastasis was found on CT. The lesions in the gallbladder were diagnosed as metastatic melanoma. He underwent chemotherapy with cisplatin-decarbazine-vincristine, but died of generalized metastases ten months later.

Key words
malignant melanoma, gallbladder metastasis

Reprint requests
Shigenori Sugihara Department of Surgery, Shimonoseki Kousei Hospital 3-3-8 Kamishinchi, Shimonoseki, 750-0061 JAPAN

Accepted
April 26, 2000

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