RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS
Open navigation menu

ORPHA:617910

Conjunctival malignant melanoma

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Conjunctival melanoma

Publications

3,018

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

924

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare eye tumor characterized by a flat to nodular conjunctival mass with variable pigmentation. It can arise in any part of the conjunctiva but most often presents on the bulbar surface, near the limbus. Invasion of corneal tissue, eyelid margin, sclera or orbit may occur in advanced tumors. Metastatic spread most commonly involves regional lymph nodes or the lung, liver, and brain. Essential diagnostic criteria are stromal invasion and severe cytological and architectural atypia exceeding those expected in a naevus. Desirable criteria are demonstration of melanocytic markers by immunohistochemistry, pagetoid growth, mitotic activity, invasion into cornea or skin, ulceration, and tumor necrosis.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (11)

conjunctiva melanoma · conjunctiva melanoma (disease) · conjunctival malignant melanoma · conjunctival melanoma · malignant conjunctiva melanoma · malignant conjunctival melanoma · malignant melanoma of conjunctiva · malignant melanoma of the conjunctiva · melanoma (disease) of conjunctiva · melanoma of conjunctiva · melanoma of the conjunctiva

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    3,018 matched papers (1,446 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

3,018

3,018 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

3,018 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

1,446 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 3,018 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

924

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Karp CL9 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Galor A7 papers · 2026

    Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center, Miami, FL, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Li Y7 papers · 2024

    Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Shields CL7 papers · 2026

    Ocular Oncology Service, Wills Eye Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Dalvin LA6 papers · 2026

    Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. Electronic address: Dalvin.Lauren@mayo.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Jia R6 papers · 2025

    Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Xu S6 papers · 2025

    Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Zhu T6 papers · 2025

    Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Jia S5 papers · 2025

    Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Reinhard T5 papers · 2026

    Faculty of Medicine, Eye Center, University of Freiburg, Killianstrasse 5, 79106, Freiburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample. 2,888 trials are registered for melanoma, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 82.4th percentile).

low confidence · 82.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

2 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Broader category: melanoma

2,888

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

2 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Conjunctival malignant melanoma" OR "Conjunctival melanoma" OR "conjunctiva melanoma" OR "conjunctiva melanoma (disease)" OR "malignant conjunctiva melanoma" OR "malignant conjunctival melanoma" OR "malignant melanoma of conjunctiva" OR "malignant melanoma of the conjunctiva" OR "melanoma (disease) of conjunctiva" OR "melanoma (disease) of the conjunctiva" OR "melanoma of conjunctiva" OR "melanoma of the conjunctiva"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Conjunctival malignant melanoma" OR "Conjunctival melanoma" OR "conjunctiva melanoma" OR "conjunctiva melanoma (disease)" OR "malignant conjunctiva melanoma" OR "malignant conjunctival melanoma" OR "malignant melanoma of conjunctiva" OR "malignant melanoma of the conjunctiva" OR "melanoma (disease) of conjunctiva" OR "melanoma (disease) of the conjunctiva" OR "melanoma of conjunctiva" OR "melanoma of the conjunctiva"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 2 interventional · 2 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"melanoma"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (3018) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T19:06:24.404Z