Surgery for gastrointestinal malignant melanoma: experience from surgical training center.
OBJECTIVE
To characterize clinical features, surgery, outcome, and survival of malignant melanoma (MM) of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in a surgical training center in Bangkok, Thailand.


METHODS
A retrospective review was performed for all patients with MM of the GI tract treated at our institution between 1997 and 2007.


RESULTS
Fourteen patients had GI involvement either in a metastatic form or as a primary melanoma. Thirteen patients with sufficient data were reviewed. The median age of the patients was 66 years (range: 32-87 years). Ten patients were female and three were male. Seven patients had primary melanomas of the anal canal, stomach and the sigmoid colon (5, 1 and 1 cases, respectively). Seven patients underwent curative resections: three abdominoperineal resections, two wide local excisions, one total gastrectomy and one sigmoidectomy. Six patients had distant metastatic lesions at the time of diagnosis, which made curative resection an inappropriate choice. Patients who underwent curative resection exhibited a longer mean survival time (29.7 mo, range: 10-96 mo) than did patients in the palliative group (4.8 mo, P = 0.0006).


CONCLUSIONS
GI MM had an unfavorable prognosis, except in patients who underwent curative resection (53.8% of cases), who had a mean survival of 29.7 mo.
Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10700, Thailand. sitak@mahidol.ac.th
Thawatchai
T
Akaraviputh
Satida
S
Arunakul
Varut
V
Lohsiriwat
Cherdsak
C
Iramaneerat
Atthaphorn
A
Trakarnsanga
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013785:Thailand; D016896:Treatment Outcome