Iris melanoma seeding through a trabeculectomy site
H. E. Grossniklaus, R. H. Brown, R. D. Stulting and R. D. Blasberg
Department of Ophthalmology, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga. 30322.
A 59-year-old man who had previously undergone a trabeculectomy in his
right eye was examined because of an enlarging pigmented lesion of the
inferior portion of the iris. A fine-needle aspiration biopsy of aqueous
fluid revealed spindle cells and epithelioid malignant melanoma cells. The
eye was enucleated, and subsequent histopathologic examination demonstrated
a mixed spindle cell and epithelioid cell melanoma of the inferior portion
of the iris with seeding of melanoma cells into the conjunctival filtering
bleb via the trabeculectomy site. This case illustrates the usefulness of
fine-needle aspiration biopsy in the evaluation of pigmented iris lesions
and illustrates that iris melanoma can seed through a trabeculectomy site.
