JUXTAPAPILLARY CHOROIDAL MELANOMA

This paper gives the data of a retrospective analysis of medical records in 328 patients undergoing enucleation for uveal melanomas (UM) in 1962 to 2007, who have been followed up in the Moscow City Ophthalmic Oncology Dispensary since 2002. Tumor invasion into the optic disk (OD) occurred in 12 (3.66 %) eyes, 8 of which were found to have pre- and laminar tumor invasion. At the same time, the main cause of OD invasion of a tumor was its juxtapapillary location. It is shown that although all juxtapapillary UMs are virtually outside the area of their primary anatomic location (choroidea), the tumor goes out of the scleral capsule less frequently than that at other sites and the survival may be more than 5 years even if the tumor goes out of the cribriform lamina and a tumor nodule forms outside the optic nerve membranes.