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.

Circulating tyrosinase and MART-1 mRNA does not independently predict relapse or survival in patients with AJCC stage I-II melanoma.

Schmidt H, Sorensen BS, Sjoegren P, Christensen IJ, Fode K, Larsen J, Nexo E, von der Maase H

Department of Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark. hesch@as.aaa.dk

The detection of melanoma cells in peripheral blood has been proposed to select patients with a high risk of relapse. In this study, tyrosinase and melanoma antigen recognized by T cells 1 (MART-1) mRNA expression was evaluated in serial samples obtained before definitive surgery and during follow-up in patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer stage I-II melanoma. Serial samples (n=2,262) were collected from 236 patients from 1997 to 2002. Analyses of the RNA samples were performed with a calibrated reverse transcriptase-PCR assay. Gender, age, primary tumor site, ulceration, thickness, Clark level, and histological subtype were analyzed together with tyrosinase and MART-1 mRNA treated as updated covariates in a Cox proportional-hazard model. After a median follow-up time of 66 months, 42 out of 236 patients (18%) had relapsed. The following variables were significantly associated with relapse-free survival in the univariate analyses: tyrosinase, MART-1, gender, ulceration, thickness, Clark level, and histological subtype. Entering these covariates into a multivariate Cox analysis resulted in thickness as the single independent prognostic factor (P<0.0001), whereas MART-1 (P=0.07) approached significance at the 5% significance level. The serial measurements of tyrosinase and MART-1 mRNA in peripheral blood of stage I-II melanoma patients cannot be demonstrated to have independent prognostic impact on relapse-free survival.

Published 16 March 2006 in J Invest Dermatol, 126(4): 849-54.
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