A Long Surviving Case of Multiple Early Stage Primary Malignant Melanoma of the Esophagus and a Review of the Literature.

We report a 75 year old man in whom primary malignant melanoma of the esophagus (PMME) was detected on an upper gastrointestinal radiographic contrast study and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy during a regular medical checkup. An extensive black lesion with a 1.5 x 1.0 cm protrusion and diffuse 1 cm flat lesions were recognized. The results of radical surgery were PMME pT1a-MM ly1 v0 pN0 (0/86) multiple lesions (+). Adjuvant chemotherapy was not employed and he has survived almost 7 years with no evidence of recurrence. PMME is a very rare lesion and in the PubMed database only 85 cases in 73 reports accumulated in a 10 year period from 2005 to 2014. Until 2014 a total of 369 cases were reported. In the ICHUSHI database (a domestic medical literature database service provided by the NPO Japan Medical Abstracts Society), 65 lesions in 62 cases were reported in the same period. Also until 2014, 301 cases were reported. At present, surgery is the first choice of treatment for PMME extending to the submucosa or deeper, but with developments in molecular targeting agents, PMME is thought to likely become an expanded indication of this technique.