Toward Resolving the Ocular Melanoma Controversy

Abstract

At a conference on melanoma sponsored by the National Eye Institute that was held on July 14 and 15, 1978, ophthalmologists working in the field of ocular malignancy joined with biometricians and authorities in other areas of oncology to review the status of our knowledge on how best to treat ocular melanomas. Attention at the meeting focused on a reappraisal by Zimmerman and associates^1,2 of survival data for patients with uveal melanoma; this information led them to the conclusion that (1) the mortality before enucleation is low (estimated at 1% per year), and (2) the mortality rises abruptly following enucleation, reaches a peak of about 8% during the second year after enucleation, and then drops off monotonically. Other data that were reviewed at the conference pointed out that both cell type and tumor size at enucleation are major prognostic factors for survival after enucleation. POSSIBLE CAUSES OF FATALITY Zimmerman