A ten-year literature review of oral malignant melanoma cases: A meta-analysis study

Oral malignant melanoma (OMM) is a rare and aggressive malignant tumour arising from the proliferation of melanocytes and accounts for only 0.5 % of all oral malignancies. It is invasive and tends to metastasise. The aim of this study is to determine the patient profile of OMM and to provide information about the clinical features and treatment plans of the disease.

The Pubmed database was searched for OMM cases published as case reports in the last 10 years. The search was limited to English and open-access case reports. A total of 49 OMMs in 45 patients from 43 case reports were analyzed. In addition to the age, gender, smoking and alcohol consumption habits of the patients, data on the signs and symptoms of OMM, location of the lesion, imaging modalities used in diagnosis and treatment, lymph node involvement, presence of metastasis, survival time, and treatment modalities were recorded.

In OMM cases, 18 (40 %) of the patients were female, 27 (60 %) were male, and the mean age was 53.13 ± 16.09 years. The most common symptom was "swelling" (n = 23, 33.8 %) and the most common finding was "hyperpigmentation" (n = 40, 24.4 %). The most common site of OMM was the maxilla (n = 21, 46.7 %). According to the rate of use of imaging modalities in the cases, it was determined that "advanced imaging modalities" were mostly used (n = 24, 53.3 %). It was determined that 22.2 % (n = 10) of the patients died within the first 5 years. Combined treatment (n = 21, 46.5 %) were mostly applied to the patients.

OMM is more common in the maxilla, in males and in the fifth decade of life, and advanced imaging modalities are most commonly used to detect the disease. Because of its poor prognosis, knowing the patient profile and common clinical features of OMM will increase the clinical awareness of physicians.