I enjoyed reading the article by Scull et al1 in the June 1997 issue of the Archives. Seventeen years earlier, we had reported a case of simultaneous cutaneous and ocular melanoma.2 It is generally accepted that multifocal malignant melanomas have genetic bases, and I think the suggestion of the authors that there is no predisposition misses the important point that it is exactly the type of patient that we and they describe who does have a predisposition for malignant melanomas. Recent research has suggested that the gene for this condition is on chromosome 9, but that still needs to be completely investigated.