Malignant melanoma and rubeosis iridis. Histopathological and statistical study.

Although rubeosis iridis has been studied since the beginning of the 2oth century (Coats, i906), only comparatively recent publications describe its occurrence in eyes affected by malignant melanoma (Terry and Johns, 1935; Ellett, I 944; Duke-Elder, I 966). Scattered case reports have appeared in the literature (Howsam, i963; Alexander and Shea, i964), but little reference was made to rubeosis in several large series (NMartin-Jones, I946; Jensen, I 963). Terry and Johns ( I 935) observed rubeosis in I 4 per cent. of their melanoma cases, and Font, Spaulding, and Zimmerman (i 968) noted rubeosis in i i per cent. of their series of diffuse melanomas. In a pathological study of rubeosis in various conditions, Schulze (I967) found only 5 per cent. of choroidal melanomas affected, but Yanoff (1970) mentioned only one case of rubeosis in his nineteen cases of melanoma with glaucoma.