Primary small-bowel melanoma: color Doppler ultrasonographic, computed tomographic, and radiologic findings with pathologic correlations

Malignant melanoma appears in typical sites where melanocytes can usually be found (skin, eyes, meninges, and anal region ).1 In the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, melanoma can be also found in the rectum and sigmoid colon by the local migration of primordial skin melanocytes.2 Some other rare sites of primary melanomas in the GI tract were described as the gall-bladder, stomach, small and large intestine, mouth, tongue, and esophagus.2–8 Generally, most GI melanomas are metastases from a skin tumor.9,10 We report the case of a patient with a first presentation of small-bowel melanoma, which was considered a primary site because of the absence of concurrent lesions and no history of removal of a melanoma or atypical melanocytic lesion from the skin or other organs.11