Choroidal melanoma is a primary cancer of the eye. It arises from the pigmented cells of the choroid of the eye and is not a tumor that started somewhere else and spread to the eye. Eye cancer specialists can correctly diagnose an intraocular choroidal melanoma in over 96% of cases (without a biopsy). Though occasionally necessary, biopsies are usually avoided because they require opening the eye (which risks letting choroidal melanoma cells out) and risk intraocular hemorrhage and infection.
Most choroidal melanoma patients have no symptoms and the melanoma is found on routine eye examination. If patients have symptoms, they are usually: seeing “flashes of light,” “distortion” or loss of vision, and floating objects (floaters) in the vision. Other, more unusual presentations of anterior choroidal and iridociliary melanoma are discoloration of the iris, a brown spot on the outside of the eye, an irregularly shaped pupil and glaucoma.
