Melanoma Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Melanoma, including details on identification, causes, prevention, treatment.

Ultrasonographic tissue characteristics of mushroom-shaped uveal melanoma.

Kaiserman I, Amer R, Kaiserman N, Pe'er J

Department of Ophthalmology, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. Igor@Dr-Kaiserman.com

PURPOSE: To evaluate the ultrasonographic tissue characteristics of mushroom-shaped versus dome-shaped uveal melanoma and to compare them with the tumor vasculature. METHODS: We examined clinically and ultrasonically 18 dome-shaped and 11 mushroom-shaped uveal melanomas (29 consecutive patients; mean age 57 years) and compared their normalized A-scan patterns.Using histological sections from a different set of patients (12 dome- and 17 mushroom-shaped tumors), we calculated the percentage of area covered by blood vessels. RESULTS: A-scans of dome-shaped tumors presented low homogeneous reflectivity, whereas the heads of mushroom-shaped tumors had high and irregular reflectivity (p < 0.001). The reflectivity of their bases was low and similar to dome-shaped tumors. The blood vessel area in the histological sections was significantly larger in the heads of mushroom-shaped tumors (0.88 +/- 0.14%), compared both to their bases (0.29 i 0.06%) (p < 0.001) and to dome-shaped tumors (0.07 i 0.03%) (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The ultrasonographic pattern suggests vascular congestion in the heads of mushroom-shaped tumors,probably due to strangulated blood vessels in the tumor neck.

Published 4 April 2005 in Curr Eye Res, 30(3): 171-7.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Melanoma Research Today. All Rights Reserved.