Primary malignant melanoma of the small bowel: A case report

Malignant melanoma comprises 1%-3% of all malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. The small bowel melanoma is an extremely rare malignancy. Very few cases have been reported in the literature. The small intestine is mostly affected by the metastatic tumors of the primary lesions especially cutaneous. This malignancy is diagnosed at the late stages as the patient remains asymptomatic. In this report we present a case of malignant melanoma arising from the small bowel in a 58-year-old male. There was no primary lesion in the eye, skin, anus, rectum or elsewhere in the body. The patient was treated with surgery. Afterward the patient presented to the emergency room with respiratory distress for which he was on ventilator support, sadly the patient died after 10 days. Malignant melanoma is an aggressive tumor and does not respond well to chemotherapy or radiotherapy.