Clinical case of a patient with subungual melanoma

Abstract

Subungual melanoma is a rare malignant tumor, little known to practitioners. Its location makes diagnosis difficult and requires differentiation with conditions such as onychomycosis, panaritium, hematoma, etc. Unsymptomatic onset brings more problems, the error level during visual examination even among experienced oncologists reaches 25–40%, and the average life expectancy of patients with fully manifested melanoma is limited to 3–4 years.

So we present a clinical case to emphasize the need for oncological alertness during an outpatient examination of the subungual lesions. A 32-year-old woman came to the reception complaining of a non-healing bleeding, relatively painless wound of the left little toe. The condition was associated with trauma, for about a month she treated the wound herself, “cauterizing” it with antiseptics.

After outpatient treatment of a granulating wound, the material was sent for histological diagnosis, which showed the presence of pigmentless melanoma in the stage of active growth. The woman was urgently hospitalized in the oncology department, where 5th finger exarticulation and inguinal-iliac lymphadenectomy were performed successfully. After this, the condition remained stable, but 14 months later there was a formation in the area of the postoperative scar. A study of a new surgical material confirmed the recurrence of malignant melanoma with Clark invasion level 2.

In our opinion, outpatient surgeons should not delay histological examination for all ulcerative and granulomatous lesions of the feet, which will improve the differential diagnosis.