CUTANEOUS MELANOMA IN A PATIENT WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Skin melanoma is a malignant tumour with aggressive behaviour. Regional or systemic metastases represent a form of spreading, however, the time of appearance should not be strictly defined. We present a case of the patient with skin melanoma, also suffering from multiple sclerosis, under a long-lasting high dose corticosteroid therapy. The primary tumour was 1.7mm thick (T2a), but the clinical course was highly aggressive with massive subcutaneous and lymphatic metastases involving even the popliteal nodes. Several surgeries were performed as the only therapeutic choice, in circumstances in which interferon could not be applied because of multiple sclerosis. The patient died 16 months after establishing the diagnosis, in the stage of generalized disease. It should be debated that aggressive clinical course could be associated with immunosupression, however, we still cannot draw definite conclusions.