Intrasinusoidal metastatic melanoma of the liver with reactive hepatitis. An immunologic phenomenon?

The macrophage migration inhibition factor (MIF) test toward extracts of choroidal melanoma was repeated four times in a patient with ocular malignant melanoma. In the initial stage, when there was only an ocular finding, the MIF test result was positive. It remained so for a period of two years, even when intrasinusoidal hepatic diffusion developed concomitantly with a nonspecific reactive hepatitis. These histologic findings can be interpreted as evidence of the presence of an immune reaction at a particular moment in the disease process. Several months later, when the patient's condition went into an abrupt decline and showed extensive nodular spread, the results of MIF test were found to have become negative.