ENDOGENOUS FLUORESCENCE OF OCULAR MALIGNANT MELANOMAS

The endogenous fluorescence of human choroid, sclera, and retinal pigm ent epithelium (RPE) in normal tissue and tissue with uveal melanoma w as studied in vitro by a non-invasive and non-destructive fluorescence technique which had previously been applied for the diagnostic evalua tion of pigmented lesions of the skin. The fluorescence of the normal choroid is rather dark, the normal sclera exhibits blue fluorescence a nd the RPE bright yellow fluorescence due to deposits of lipofuscin. I n choroidal melanoma, the lipofuscin granulae at the level of the reti nal pigment epithelium are cleaved off above the tumour and broken up into small remnants. The fluorescence intensity emitted from the tumou r is rather low which agrees with previous findings on skin melanomas. The results may become interesting for diagnostic evaluation of uveal melanomas, uveal naevi, and pigmented conjunctival tumours by endogen ous fluorescence.