Malignant melanoma of the vagina: A case report of progression from preexisting melanosis

Primary vaginal melanoma in the setting of mucosal melanosis - A case report and literature review

“…The combination of both vaginal melanoma and vaginal melanosis in the same patient has been documented [17], however is exceptionally rare. It has been suggested that mucosal melanosis is a possible precursor of melanoma [17], however one recent long term follow up of patients with vulvalmelanosis revealed no progression of melanosis to melanoma [18]. Overall, genital, including vaginal, melanosis is considered benign and conservative management with follow up to monitor for progression and treating this accordingly if present is the current standard of treatment [18,19].…”

“…Mucosal melanosis is associated with the following features; increased pigmentation of basal keratinocytes, increased melanocytes without atypia and pigment incontinence into the subepithelium [11][12][13][14][15][16]. The combination of both vaginal melanoma and vaginal melanosis in the same patient has been documented [17], however is exceptionally rare. It has been suggested that mucosal melanosis is a possible precursor of melanoma [17], however one recent long term follow up of patients with vulvalmelanosis revealed no progression of melanosis to melanoma [18].…”

A Laugier-Hunziker Syndrome Associated with Esophageal Melanocytosis

“…In addition, when confronted with an isolated pigmented spot, a systematic search for others at different sites is recommended in order to establish the diagnosis and to avoid unnecessary and difficult biopsies as mentioned by Dupré and Viraben [5]. This is also necessary to determine whether the pigmented lesions are a risk factor for malignancy such as esophageal, vaginal, conjunctival and nasal mucosal melanoma [24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29]. …”

Letters to the Editors

“…3,4,7 Diagnosis of cryptococcosis by FNA has been reported in various organs, including thyroid, lung and spleen. 8 Recently Yang described a case of Pneumocystis carinii infection presenting as a common bile duct mass in an HIVpositive patient with no pulmonary involvement. 3 As such, an infectious etiology should be strongly considered in the differential diagnosis of a mass lesion in immunocompromised patients.…”

“…6 Malignant melanoma rarely originates in the vagina and is thought to arise from the malignant transformation of ectopic melanocytes. 7,8 The lesions can show a variable degree of pigmentation and usually occur on the anterior aspect of the vagina. In our case, the periurethral mass was not pigmented, and the vaginal nodules were-hence the lack of pigmentation on cytology.…”