Intestinal melanoma: A broad spectrum of clinical presentation

Small intestine melanomas are rare and the most of them are metastases from primary cutaneous neoplasms.

Below, we report two cases of small intestine metastatic melanoma with very different clinical presentation.

Still now, primary versus metastatic origin is often unclear. Small bowel melanoma is often asymptomatic. However, clinical picture can be various; it may occurs with non specific symptoms and signs of gastro-intetstinal involvement, like chronic abdominal pain, occult or gross bleeding and weight loss, or with an emergency picture due to intestinal intussusception, obstruction or, rarely, perforation.

Small bowel melanoma is rare and the diagnosis done late. Imaging techniques are recommended in order to obtain early diagnosis of gastrointestinal metastases.