Capsule endoscopy diagnosis of gastrointestinal melanoma.

Melanoma is a cancer that frequently metastasises to the small bowel, but most cases are asymptomatic and are diagnosed postmortem. Therefore, CT and PET CT cannot detect all lesions and conventional endoscopic study only detects 10-20% of lesions. In this study, we present the case of a 68-year-old patient with a history of cutaneous melanoma and a diagnosis of intestinal melanoma. Thanks to capsule endoscopy, two lesions compatible with cutaneous melanoma metastasis to the small bowel were detected, allowing a much more effective surgical planning. Capsule endoscopy is an innovative technique that improves preoperative diagnosis, as it is able to detect bowel segments that cannot be inspected by conventional endoscopy. It also has a better resolution than conventional CT, improving sensitivity in the detection of lesions.