Adenocarcinoma of the retinal pigment epithelium
D. Minckler and A. W. Allen Jr
A 57-year-old woman complaining of decreased vision for six months had a
mass expanding the choroid inferonasally in the right eye. Clinical
examination, ultrasonography, and fluorescein angiography were consistent
with a malignant melanoma. The eye was enucleated and pathologic studies
showed an adenocarcinoma of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Malignant
tumors of the RPE may simulate exactly choroidal melanomas clinically, but
apparently have a much better prognosis, in that very few cases have been
documented to produce metastatic disease. The vast majority of cases
studied histopathologically, in which a diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the
RPE has been made, are low-grade malignant neoplasms with the absence of
invasion beyond the choroid or lamina cribrosa at the time of enucleation.
