Original ArticlesMelanocytoma (magnocellular nevus) of the ciliary body: report of 10 cases and review of the literature☆
Section snippets
Materials and methods
We examined histopathologically 10 melanocytomas of the ciliary body from 10 patients. Nine of the 10 patients were treated at our institution and one was a consultation. Sections were cut at five μm, and the slides were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and the periodic-acid-Schiff methods. Sections were also bleached for 30 minutes using 0.25% potassium permanganate and counterstained with Mayer’s hematoxylin. Representative samples were submitted for conventional transmission electron
Results
The average age of the patients in our series at the time of surgery was 46.5 years (range, 7–85 years). There were seven women and three men. Eight patients were white, one was black, and one was Asian. The right eye was involved in six cases, the left eye in three, and in one case this information was not available. No predilection for any quadrant or superior-versus-inferior location was observed (see Table 1, Table 2.)
Five patients were asymptomatic when the tumor was first discovered. Of
Discussion
Melanocytomas of the uvea are relatively uncommon tumors. Howard and Forrest,10 in a study of 907 pigmented intraocular tumors, found only 5 melanocytomas (an incidence of 0.6%). In a review of 189 iris or ciliary body lesions, or both, originally diagnosed as melanomas, Jakobiec and Silbert7 identified 10 of 189 (5%) as melanocytomas.
Eighteen cases of ciliary body melanocytomas were reported by other authors before 1985. These were summarized by Frangieh et al,11 who added four additional
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2019, Saudi Journal of OphthalmologyCitation Excerpt :EM findings also differ between the 2 types with a corresponding smaller cells, less coarse melanin, and prominent indentations of the nuclear membranes in Type II cells versus giant melanosomes in Type I, which was appreciated in our case by EM thus supporting our diagnosis.13 Demographically, Lo Russo and co-authors summarized a total of 40 cases of CB melanocytoma including 10 cases of their own and concluded an average age of 47 years, 65% prevalence in females, and higher occurrence in white patients (80%) compared to black (10%).13 Following their review in 1999, several sporadic cases have been reported in the English-written literature, the majority of which are describing the challenging clinical diagnosis and the impact of this on treatment modalities other than enucleation which includes local excision, iridocyclectomy with lamellar sclera flap and brachytherapy.14,15,16,17
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Supported in part by a grant from the Retina Research Foundation, Houston, Texas, the National Institutes of Health (grant no. EY02520), and by an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness, New York, New York.