title: Iris melanomas. Diagnostic problems.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To illustrate some management problems with pigmented iris tumors.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a retrospective analysis of 234 iris tumors managed by one of the authors. Five patients were selected whose clinical course and pathologic data illustrate diagnostic problems that can occur with these tumors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the patients described, diagnostic problems were noted. In two patients, glaucoma specialists were unable to correctly diagnose an iris melanoma before filtration. One patient had a 3-clock-hour iris biopsy that was not diagnostic for malignancy, yet the enucleated eye showed melanoma. One patient with a clinically stable iris tumor had a mixed-cell melanoma.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most iris-pigmented tumors have a benign disease course. In some case, despite little clinical evidence of disease activity or progression, a melanoma, often with epithelioid cells, may be present and neither a fine-needle nor an open biopsy is always diagnostic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
authors.forename: D H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Char
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Crawford
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kroll
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000869:Anterior Eye Segment / Q000473:pathology; D001706:Biopsy; D015353:Eye Enucleation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007429:Intraocular Pressure; D015811:Iris Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies