Late Diagnosis of Oral Mucosal Melanoma: Case Report

Primary oral malignant melanoma usually presents as a dark brown or black lesion. It is a rare malignancy, accounting for less than 1% of all melanomas and 1.6% of all head and neck malignancies, thus forming up to 0.5% of all oral malignancies in the world literature. In general, the prognosis of oral melanoma is poor and worse than that of cutaneous melanoma. The preferred treatment is radical surgery alone or in combination with radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy and immunomodulatory agents. A case of Oral Malignant Melanoma is presented here which was undetected during the first visit to the hospital. When a simple oral surgical treatment was carried out in that region, it resulted in the appearance of a massive pigmented lesion which was histopathologically diagnosed as malignant melanoma. This paper is presented to re- emphasize the fact that any pigmented lesion in the oral cavity should be viewed with suspicion and proper investigation (biopsy) should be carried out to rule out any untoward experiences later