Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap

Oral mucosal melanomas are highly malignant tumors. The 'chameleonic' presentation of a mainly asymptomatic condition, the rarity of these lesions, the poor prognosis and the necessity of a highly specialized treatment are factors that should be seriously considered by the involved health...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K, Kyrmizakis, Dionysios E, Drivas, Emmanouil I, Koutsopoulos, Anastassios V, Malandrakis, Stylianos G, Skoulakis, Charalambos E, Bizakis, John G
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1475844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569245
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-160X-2-7
_version_ 1782128155071348736
author Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K
Kyrmizakis, Dionysios E
Drivas, Emmanouil I
Koutsopoulos, Anastassios V
Malandrakis, Stylianos G
Skoulakis, Charalambos E
Bizakis, John G
author_facet Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K
Kyrmizakis, Dionysios E
Drivas, Emmanouil I
Koutsopoulos, Anastassios V
Malandrakis, Stylianos G
Skoulakis, Charalambos E
Bizakis, John G
author_sort Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K
collection PubMed
description Oral mucosal melanomas are highly malignant tumors. The 'chameleonic' presentation of a mainly asymptomatic condition, the rarity of these lesions, the poor prognosis and the necessity of a highly specialized treatment are factors that should be seriously considered by the involved health provider. We present the case of a 75-year-old man who was referred to the Ear, Nose and Throat department. His symptoms were voice alteration and saliva drooling, progressively worsening during the last few weeks. The absence of pain was the reason for the delay of seeking medical care. The diagnosis was an oversized oral melanoma. This is an example of how the time of diagnosis and the evolution of a disease could be seriously influenced by patient's behavior. Melanomas arising from oral mucosa have poor prognosis unless they are discovered and treated early. The vigilance of the physicians is necessary to have success in this difficult task.
format Text
id pubmed-1475844
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2006
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-14758442006-06-10 Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K Kyrmizakis, Dionysios E Drivas, Emmanouil I Koutsopoulos, Anastassios V Malandrakis, Stylianos G Skoulakis, Charalambos E Bizakis, John G Head Face Med Case Study Oral mucosal melanomas are highly malignant tumors. The 'chameleonic' presentation of a mainly asymptomatic condition, the rarity of these lesions, the poor prognosis and the necessity of a highly specialized treatment are factors that should be seriously considered by the involved health provider. We present the case of a 75-year-old man who was referred to the Ear, Nose and Throat department. His symptoms were voice alteration and saliva drooling, progressively worsening during the last few weeks. The absence of pain was the reason for the delay of seeking medical care. The diagnosis was an oversized oral melanoma. This is an example of how the time of diagnosis and the evolution of a disease could be seriously influenced by patient's behavior. Melanomas arising from oral mucosa have poor prognosis unless they are discovered and treated early. The vigilance of the physicians is necessary to have success in this difficult task. BioMed Central 2006-03-28 /pmc/articles/PMC1475844/ /pubmed/16569245 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-160X-2-7 Text en Copyright © 2006 Symvoulakis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Case Study
Symvoulakis, Emmanouil K
Kyrmizakis, Dionysios E
Drivas, Emmanouil I
Koutsopoulos, Anastassios V
Malandrakis, Stylianos G
Skoulakis, Charalambos E
Bizakis, John G
Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title_full Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title_fullStr Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title_full_unstemmed Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title_short Oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
title_sort oral mucosal melanoma: a malignant trap
topic Case Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1475844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569245
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-160X-2-7
work_keys_str_mv AT symvoulakisemmanouilk oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT kyrmizakisdionysiose oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT drivasemmanouili oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT koutsopoulosanastassiosv oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT malandrakisstylianosg oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT skoulakischaralambose oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap
AT bizakisjohng oralmucosalmelanomaamalignanttrap