[Malignant melanoma of the esophagus (author's transl)]

A case report is given of a malignant melanoma of the esophagus and the symptoms of this tumor are reviewed on the basis of 62 cases from the world literature. Males were afflicted 1.7 times as often as females. 85% of all patients were between the ages of 50 and 75. Symptoms, localization, and pattern of metastases are essentially similar to esophageal carcinoma. Melanoma grows like polyps in most cases and does have the typical histological pattern with differing amounts of pigmentation; pigmentation may be difficult to diagnose endoscopically. The esophageal melanoma apparently originate from intraepithelial foci of melanoma cells, which can be found in the neighbourhood of melanomas in macroscopically intact mucosa.