From skin to spontaneous lysis: A case of spontaneous tumor lysis syndrome in metastatic melanoma

Abstract

Tumor lysis syndrome is a life-threatening complication that often occurs after administration of cytotoxic therapy, but rarely occurs spontaneously without chemotherapy. This vignette describes a 59-year-old male with known extensive metastatic melanoma who presented to the hospital with spontaneous tumor lysis syndrome. Most spontaneous tumor lysis cases occur in patients with acute leukemias and aggressive lymphomas; however, this rare case depicts a patient with melanoma developing tumor lysis before the administration of chemotherapy.