Ocular melanomas: formaldehyde-induced fluorescence in relation to mortality.

Some ocular malignant melanomas contain enough cysteinyldopa to make them fluorescent when treated with formaldehyde. In 32 ocular malignant melanomas, such fluorescence was seen in 19 cases, which had a slightly, but not significantly, worse prognosis than the 13 cases with no fluorescence. The mixed type of malignant melanoma showed fluorescence significantly more often than the B type. Fluorescence histochemistry thus gives a biochemical classification of the tumor, but not a malignancy prognosis.