Palliative orbital decompression for metastatic melanoma to the orbit

Although relatively rare, metastatic carcinomas to the orbit are the second most common orbital neoplasm in the adult. There are only ten cases reported in the literature of cutaneous melanoma metastatic to the orbit and, of these, only two had disease involving both orbits. This paper presents the third case of bilateral orbital melanoma; however, in this case, the primary site was the uveal tract in the first eye, with contralateral involvement being a metastasis of the orbital primary. The patient developed severe unilateral proptosis in his only seeing eye with progressive loss of vision. A palliative orbital decompression was performed which successfully restored visual acuity for an extended period of time. A brief discussion of the rationale for this procedure in this type of case is presented.