Primary anorectal malignant melanoma with laparoscopic abdominoperineal resection: a case study and review of the relevant literature

We report the case of an 81-year-old woman who had experienced bloody stool for 6 months before her diagnosis and who had been initially diagnosed with hemorrh oids. The pathological diagnosis of a biopsy specimen was malignant melanoma. Other examinations showed no evidence of lymph node or distant metastasis. Based on these results, laparoscopic abdominoperineal resection was performed. Three months later on her first follow-up examination, distant metas tasis to the lung and liver was detected. Immunotherapy using Nivolumab was initiated to treat the recurrent disease. We reviewed the characteristics of a total of 1834 ARMM patients described in previous reports on ARMM for which the full text was available on PubMed. We experienced a case of ARMM. The prognosis of ARMM is still poor, regardless of the surgical procedure. Previous studies and our case report suggest that systemic therapy, such as immunotherapy using an anti-PD-1 ligand may be more important than reinforcement of local control for improving the prognosis of ARMM patients.
Source: International Cancer Conference Journal - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research