Two cases of metastatic malignant melanoma: Successfully treated with chemotherapy

Case 1: A 63-year-old man visited our hospital in August 2000 with a 10-year history of a black tumor on his left eye. His whole left eye was surgically removed. On August 14, 2001, he had a sudden severe stomachache and was found to have visceral disseminated metastasis. He received two courses of chemotherapy with dacarbazine, nimustine, cisplatin and tamoxifen (DAC-Tam) and one course of chemotherapy with cisplatin, dacarbazine and vindesine (CDV). As a result, most of his metastatic lesion disappeared. Case 2: A 49-year-old woman visited our hospital in July 2001 for an examination of subcutaneous tumors in the right inguinal region. She had first noticed a tumor in November 2000, and the number of tumors had since gradually increased. Although an extensive examination did not reveal the primary lesion, another metastatic lesion was found in her lung. She received five courses of CDV with interferon-β. After the third course, the lung lesions completely disappeared and the metastatic tumors in the inguinal lymph nodes had decreased in size. The right inguinal lymph nodes were thereafter completely resected. In both cases, no new metastases have been found for more than 4 weeks.