ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the diagnosis and treatments of malignant melanoma in gastrointestinal tract.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>The clinical data of 70 cases of malignant melanoma in gastrointestinal tract treated between July 1965 and June 2007 were collected and analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>There were 27 male and 43 female patients in this group with a median age of 53 years. The melanoma arose from rectum in 50 cases, from anus in 10 cases and from esophagus in 10 cases. The overall 1, 3, 5 years survival rate were 48.3%, 14.6% and 6.5%, respectively, the median survival time was 379 days. Sixty-three cases received operations with or without adjuvant therapy after the operation. There was no significant differences in overall survival rate between the 25 cases received operation only (Group 1) and 38 cases supplemented by adjuvant therapy after operation (Group 2); whereas, the cases with clinical stage III tumor in Group 2 had significantly better survival than their counterparts in Group 1. It was found that the depth of tumor invasion was the risk factor of patient's prognosis on multivariate Cox regression analysis.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Operation combined with adjuvant therapy can improve the survival of the patient with stage III melanoma in gastrointestinal tract. The depth of tumor invasion is a risk factor of survival in these patients.</p>