Clinical imaging and high-resolution ultrasonography in melanocytoma management

Daniel Gologorsky¹, Amy C Schefler², Fiona J Ehlies², Paul A Raskauskas³, Yolanda Pina², Basil K Williams Jr⁴, Timothy G Murray<sup>2

1</sup>Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire; ²Department of Ophthalmology, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida; ³Retina Consultants of Southwest Florida, Fort Myers, Florida; ⁴Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, Illinois, USA

Purpose: To demonstrate the utility of high resolution 20 MHz ophthalmic ultrasound in serial follow-up of optic nerve head melanocytoma patients.

Methods: This study is a retrospective review of 30 patients with melanocytoma of the optic nerve head studied with echography. All patients were evaluated with standard ophthalmic A-scan and B-scan ultrasonography and 10 (33%) underwent high-resolution ultrasound.

Results: Sixty-two percent (62%) of patients had dome-shaped lesions on ultrasound, ­twenty-eight percent (28%) presented with mild elevations. The maximum elevation of any lesion was 2.6 mm. The vast majority (89%) of lesions had medium or high internal ­reflectivity and 89% demonstrated avascularity. Mean follow-up for all patients was nearly 7 years. High-resolution ultrasound enabled enhanced accuracy for detection of lesion dimensions and documentation of growth and possible malignant transformation.

Conclusions: In this study, we demonstrate a new and important role for the use of ultrasound in this disease as a complementary tool in identifying and following patients with high-risk growth characteristics. These tumor characteristics can be accurately detected with 10 MHz ultrasound in conjunction with standardized A-scan and better differentiated with the 20 MHz technology. Use of these modalities can aid in distinguishing the melanocytomas that grow from choroidal melanomas and can prevent unnecessary treatments.

Keywords: imaging, high-resolution, ultrasonography, melanocytoma