Melanoma Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Melanoma, including details on identification, causes, prevention, treatment.

Management of iris melanomas with 125Iodine plaque radiotherapy.

Fernandes BF, Krema H, Fulda E, Pavlin CJ, Payne DG, McGowan HD, Simpson ER

Department of Ocular Oncology, Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. bruno.mtl@gmail.com

PURPOSE: To report the experience of the Princess Margaret Hospital/University Health Network with the treatment of iris melanoma (IM) with (125)Iodine plaque brachytherapy. DESIGN: Retrospective noncomparative case series. METHODS: All cases of IM submitted to (125)Iodine plaque radiotherapy were included. Patients' demographic, clinical, management, and follow-up data were reviewed. Outcome measures included rates of tumor control, eye preservation, systemic metastases, and brachytherapy-related complications. RESULTS: Fourteen IMs were included in the study. All patients had blue/green irises. Mean largest basal dimension and thickness were 7.1 +/- 2.1 mm (range, 4.0 to 11.5 mm) and 2.2 +/- 0.8 mm (range, 1.0 to 3.5 mm), respectively. Ten patients (71%) had seeding and 2 (14%) had glaucoma at presentation. Median follow-up was 26.6 +/- 19.5 months (range, 6 to 72 months). Tumor control was achieved in 100% of the cases and no eye was enucleated because of radiation-induced complications. At last visit, all patients were alive and free of metastasis. Final visual acuity was the same as or better than before treatment in 9 patients (75%). Cataract was the most common complication (8; 75%), followed by persistent glaucoma (2; 17%) and anterior uveitis (1; 8%). No other significant complication was seen during the follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS: Plaque radiotherapy is a safe and effective conservative treatment option for IM, although cataract is a common, yet treatable, complication. This treatment scheme circumvents an intraocular procedure and may avoid the dissemination of malignant cells, and provides a margin of safety in the treatment of clinically undetectable disease.

Published 27 January 2010 in Am J Ophthalmol, 149(1): 70-6.
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Articles on Melanoma published 21 January 2010:

Candida albicans enhances experimental hepatic melanoma metastasis.   Clin Exp Metastasis, 27(1): 35-42.

Candida albicans infections are very frequent in cancer patients, whose immune system is often compromised, but whether this fungal pathogen affects cancer progression is unknown. C. albicans infection involves endogenous production of inflammatory cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-18 (IL-18). Increased levels of these cytokines have already been correlated with metastasis of most common cancer types. In this study, a well-established model of ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 20 January 2010:

E2F1 in melanoma progression and metastasis.   J Natl Cancer Inst, 102(2): 127-33.

Metastases are responsible for cancer deaths, but the molecular alterations leading to tumor progression are unclear. Overexpression of the E2F1 transcription factor is common in high-grade tumors that are associated with poor patient survival. To investigate the association of enhanced E2F1 activity with aggressive phenotype, we performed a gene-specific silencing approach in a metastatic melanoma model. Knockdown of endogenous E2F1 via E2F1 small hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression increased ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 18 January 2010:

Pathology review of thin melanoma and melanoma in situ in a multidisciplinary melanoma clinic: impact on treatment decisions.   J Clin Oncol, 28(3): 481-6.

PURPOSE: Patients with thin melanoma (<or= 1.0 mm) and melanoma in situ (MIS) represent the majority of newly diagnosed melanoma. We estimated the impact of expert review of outside pathology material on the staging and thus treatment decisions affecting patients referred to a multidisciplinary clinic with early-stage melanoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied patients with a diagnosis of thin melanoma or MIS referred to H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center from 2006 to 2009. After comparing the ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 12 January 2010:

Tumor self-seeding by circulating cancer cells.   Cell, 139(7): 1315-26.

Cancer cells that leave the primary tumor can seed metastases in distant organs, and it is thought that this is a unidirectional process. Here we show that circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can also colonize their tumors of origin, in a process that we call "tumor self-seeding." Self-seeding of breast cancer, colon cancer, and melanoma tumors in mice is preferentially mediated by aggressive CTCs, including those with bone, lung, or brain-metastatic tropism. We find that the tumor-derived ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 7 January 2010:

The orphan tyrosine kinase receptor, ROR2, mediates Wnt5A signaling in metastatic melanoma.   Oncogene, 29(1): 34-44.

Tyrosine kinase receptors represent targets of great interest for cancer therapy. Here we show, for the first time, the importance of the orphan tyrosine kinase receptor, ROR2, in melanoma progression. Using melanoma tissue microarrays, we show that ROR2 is expressed predominantly in metastatic melanoma. As ROR2 has been shown to specifically interact with the non-canonical Wnt ligand, Wnt5A, this corroborates our earlier data implicating Wnt5A as a mediator of melanoma metastasis. We show here ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 6 January 2010:

BTLA mediates inhibition of human tumor-specific CD8+ T cells that can be partially reversed by vaccination.   J Clin Invest, 120(1): 157-67.

The function of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells, which may protect against both infectious and malignant diseases, can be impaired by ligation of their inhibitory receptors, which include CTL-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed cell death 1 (PD-1). Recently, B and T lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA) was identified as a novel inhibitory receptor with structural and functional similarities to CTLA-4 and PD-1. BTLA triggering leads to decreased antimicrobial and autoimmune T cell responses in ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Melanoma published 5 January 2010:

Characterization of melanoma cells capable of propagating tumors from a single cell.   Cancer Res, 70(1): 388-97.

Questions persist about the nature and number of cells with tumor-propagating capability in different types of cancer, including melanoma. In part, this is because identification and characterization of purified tumorigenic subsets of cancer cells has not been achieved to date. Here, we report tumor formation after injection of single purified melanoma cells derived from three novel mouse models. Tumor formation occurred after every injection of individual CD34+p75- melanoma cells, with ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

A novel mouse model for de novo Melanoma.   Cancer Res, 70(1): 24-9.

Nevus-associated melanomas arise from pre-existing benign lesions, but de novo melanomas can also develop in the absence of such lesions. Few studies have addressed the latter phenomenon because no animal models have been described in which melanomas clearly develop in a de novo manner. In this study, we have address this need in defining RFP-RET-transgenic mice (RET mice) as a mouse model for multi-step melanomagenesis that proceeds via tumor-free, benign, premalignant, and malignant stages. ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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