Survival rate of patients with choroidal melanoma.

A follow-up examination of 214 patients suffering from choroidal melanoma is reported. The frequency of this tumor turns out to be higher in males than in females. There is an increase of relative frequency with age in both female and male patients. The death rate from proven metastases was 34.2% within 5 years. Spindle cell melanomas yield an 85% chance of 5-year survival. Only about 53% of all patients with epithelioid cell melanoma will survive for 5 years. 71% of all patients who died had metastic tumors mainly in liver, bones, and lungs. Most of them had had an epithelioid cell melanoma.