[Desmoplastic malignant melanoma]. / Desmoplasticheskaia zlokachestvennaia melanoma.

A rare case of desmoplastic malignant melanoma which produced many difficulties in diagnosis is reported. Analysis of histological structure of the primary tumor and its metastases as well as signs of melanocytic differentiation found at electron-microscopic level enabled differentiation of this tumor with neoplasms of another histogenesis which is important for treatment and prognosis.

[Combined treatment of patients with metastases of skin melanoma using cryotherapy]. / Kompleksnoe lechenie bol'nykh s metastazami melanomy kozhi s ispol'zovaniem krioterapii.

Cryotherapy or cryotherapy plus intratumoral injection of BCG vaccine were used in combination with either prospidin or imidazole-carboxamide and multidrug chemotherapy including vincristine, dactinomycin and CCNU for the treatment of 106 cases of cutaneous and subcutaneous metastases of skin malignant melanoma. Five-year survival for the entire group was 36 +/- 5.1%. The best results were obtained for prospidin (43.6 +/- 8.6%) (imidazole-carboxamide--31.3 +/- 9.4% and combined chemotherapy--30.5 +/- 5.8%). Imidazole-carboxamide should be used in conjunction with cryotherapy plus intratumoral BCG vaccine. Procedure of topical treatment did not significantly influence the effectiveness of prospidin or combination chemotherapy.