OBJECTIVE To determine if patients diagnosed as having metastatic uveal melanoma before the onset of symptoms experience more favorable survival outcomes than patients diagnosed after the onset of symptoms. METHODS A retrospective cohort study was performed among 90 patients who were diagnosed as having metastatic uveal melanoma after proton beam irradiation by routine surveillance testing (a...

Uveal melanoma is the most common primary ocular malignancy in adults, with an annual incidence of 6–7 cases/million people.[1‐3] The choroid is the most common site of involvement occurring in more than 90% patients.[3] We conducted a retrospective study for uveal melanoma at Tongren Eye Center from 1997 to 2011. A total of 682 cases of uveal melanoma were recorded. Among them, 176 (25.8%) cas...

Background: Tumour microvascularity is a significant determinant of prognosis for a large number of different tumours, including uveal melanoma. The development of blood vessels within these and other tumours is partly controlled by soluble pro-angiogenic cytokines, of which basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF) are the best described. Methods: Be...

BACKGROUND Although a rare disease, uveal melanoma is the most common primary intraocular malignancy in adults, with an incidence rate of up to 1.0 per 100,000 persons per year in Europe. Only a few consistent risk factors have been identified for this disease. We present the study design of an ongoing incident case-control study on uveal melanoma (acronym: RIFA study) that focuses on radiofreq...

PURPOSE In uveal melanoma, both tumor size and an inflammatory phenotype have been shown to correlate with a poor clinical prognosis. The purpose of this study was to identify whether inflammatory cytokines were present in the vitreous of eyes with uveal melanoma and to determine whether the vitreal concentration of cytokines correlated with prognostic variables such as tumor dimensions and imm...

Ocular melanoma is the second most common type of melanoma after cutaneous and the most common primary intraocular malignant tumor in adults. Large majority of ocular melanomas originate from uvea, while conjunctival melanomas are far less frequent. Incidence of uveal melanoma has remained stable over last three decades. Diagnosis is in most cases established by clinical examination with great ...

Ocular melanoma (OM) is a rare noncutaneous malignancy and consists of 2 different subtypes based on the anatomic location in eye: uveal conjunctival melanoma. Like cutaneous melanoma, OM benefits from nuclear medicine molecular imaging nodal staging clinical management. Through illustration distinctive cases, we aim to demonstrate complementary roles standard lymphoscintigraphy, advanced SPECT...

There are few epidemiologic studies dealing with electromagnetic radiation and uveal melanoma. The majority of these studies are exploratory and are based on job and industry titles only. We conducted a hospital-based and population-based case-control study of uveal melanoma and occupational exposures to different sources of electromagnetic radiation, including radiofrequency radiation. We then...

PURPOSE To determine whether uveal melanoma, the most common primary intraocular malignancy in adults, requires Notch activity for growth and metastasis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Expression of Notch pathway members was characterized in primary tumor samples and in cell lines, along with the effects of Notch inhibition or activation on tumor growth and invasion. RESULTS Notch receptors, ligands, ...

PURPOSE The presence of a high number of infiltrating macrophages in uveal melanoma is associated with a bad prognosis. However, there are several known types of macrophages, of which the M2 is considered to be proangiogenic and tumor-promoting. This study was conducted to determine whether the tumor-infiltrating macrophages in uveal melanoma are of this M2 subtype. METHODS Macrophages were i...