Primary malignant melanoma of the bronchus

A case is presented of a 55-year-old woman with fever, cough, chest pain, and hemoptysis. A chest x-ray showed a large mass in the right upper lobe of the lung. Bronchoscopy and bronchial biopsies revealed malignant melanoma of the bronchus. Careful search of all common sites for melanoma and the histological examinations of the two skin lesions failed to substantiate the possibility of an extrapulmonary origin and, thus, by deduction it can be assumed with some certainty that this lesion is primary bronchial melanoma.Total pneumonectomy, when there is no evidence of extrapulmonary extension, coupled with adjuvant chemotherapy seem to offer a chance of cure.The patient presented is the first reported case of primary malignant melanoma of the bronchus from the University College Hospital, Ibadan, and perhaps the first reported case in a Nigerian.