MULTIPLE MELANOMA IN XERODERMA-PIGMENTOSU M

Xeroderma pigmentosum comprises a heterogeneous group of autosomal rec essive hereditary diseases, which are characterized by a number of cli nical characteristics and an abnormal DNA repair mechanism. Patients a ffected show a high frequency of mucocutaneous malignant tumours, espe cially squamous cell carcinomas and basal cell carcinomas. We report o n a 65-year-old patient who successively developed a total of 15 malig nant melanomas, 1 squamous cell carcinoma and 1 lymph node metastasis of a malignant melanoma. The clinical diagnosis of xeroderma pigmentos um was confirmed by the complementation analysis, which defined our pa tient as xeroderma pigmentosum of the complementation group D.