• conjunctival melanoma

Conjunctival melanoma represents only 1.6% of all non-cutaneous melanomas.¹ Its rarity is emphasised in the Swedish report where the National Cancer Registry filed 1243 cases of cutaneous melanoma in a population of 8.4 million people during 1 year in comparison with only two cases of conjunctival melanoma.² Thus, data regarding this condition are scanty and primarily gathered at major eye cancer centres over long periods of time.

In this issue of the BJO (p 163), Anastassiou and coworkers analyse their 28 year experience with 69 patients with conjunctival melanoma managed at two eye clinics in Germany. Their findings support previous reports that nearly 50% of patients experience recurrent conjunctival melanoma. Factors most predictive of recurrence included amelanotic colour or mixed pigmentation, deep tumour invasion, and incomplete surgical excision. These data corroborate our previous published findings that tumour …