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Unusual Survival Following Cerebral Metastasis

Lynn E. Spitler, MD; Peter Wong, MD; Richard Sagebiel, MD

Arch Dermatol. 1978;114(10):1501-1504.

Abstract
• An 18-year-old woman was found to have solitary cerebral, choroidal, and pulmonary metastases of malignant melanoma three years after excision of a primary malignant melanoma. The cerebral metastasis was excised, and the patient's condition was treated with CNS irradiation followed by combined immunotherapy with transfer factor and Bacille bilié de Calmette-Guérin. The transfer factor donor was her father, who showed cellular immunity to melanoma extracts on in vitro testing. Histologic examination of the pulmonary nodule, which was excised after the initiation of immunotherapy, revealed a dense lymphocytic infiltrate associated with the metastatic melanoma. The patient is currently free of detectable melanoma more than three years after the cerebral metastasis. Studies in a second patient also demonstrated the appearance of inflammatory infiltrate in metastatic melanoma following transfer factor therapy.

(Arch Dermatol 114:1501-1504, 1978)

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Medicine (Drs Spitler and Wong) and Pathology and Dermatology (Dr Sagebiel), University of California, San Francisco, and the Paul M. Aggeler Memorial Laboratory (Dr Spitler) and the Department of Pathology, Children's Hospital of San Francisco.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication May 15, 1978.

Presented in part before the conference of "Immune Mechanisms in Cutaneous Disorders," Augusta, Mich, October 1975.

Reprints not available.

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