Metastatic melanoma is a rare form of skin cancer, but one that comes with a high mortality rate. Pulmonary involvement is frequently seen in metastatic melanoma with only 2% of malignant melanoma patients with thorax metastasis presenting with pleural effusions. Herein, we report an extremely rare case of black pleural effusion from thoracic metastasis of cutaneous malignant melanoma. A 74-yea...

Cutaneous melanomas have been found to express several immunogenic differentiation melanoma-associated antigens (MAAs) that have been suggested to play an important role in disease outcome. Adaptive host immunity to MAAs has shown some level of control on melanoma progression. To date, there has been no definitive report correlating the level of differentiated MAAs gene expression in melanomas ...

PURPOSE New medications and combination treatment strategies for patients with metastatic melanoma are discussed. SUMMARY Bcl-2 is an inhibitor of apoptosis that is overexpressed in approximately 80% of melanoma cell lines and is believed to contribute to the development of resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy in patients with melanoma. Oblimersen, an antisense oligonucleotide that stops the ...

Melanoma incidence is increasing worldwide, and metastatic melanoma is almost completely resistant to every known therapy. New approaches to treating melanoma are urgently needed, and a greater understanding of the biology of melanoma invasion and metastasis will aid in their creation. A high proportion of invasive melanomas have a constitutively active Raf/mitogen-activated protein kinase/extr...

CONTEXT Malignant melanoma commonly metastasizes to the small intestine where it can cause pain, bleeding, and obstruction. However, jaundice from metastatic melanoma is relatively uncommon. CASE REPORT A case of known malignant melanoma presenting as new onset obstructive jaundice as a result of a rarely reported metastasis to the ampulla of Vater. CONCLUSION Multidisciplinary management o...

Mouse B16LuF1 melanoma cells of lower metastatic potential to lung were treated in vitro with same concentration (50 microM) of gangliosides prepared from plasma of mice bearing lung metastasis of B16LuF5, B16LuF9 or B16LuF10 melanoma cell lines of increasing metastatic potential to lung (LuF1 < LuF5 < LuF9 < LuF10) and injected to normal mice through tail vein. The number of metastatic tumor n...

Cutaneous melanomas have been found to express several immunogenic differentiation melanoma-associated antigens (MAAs) that have been suggested to play an important role in disease outcome. Adaptive host immunity to MAAs has shown some level of control on melanoma progression. To date, there has been no definitive report correlating the level of differentiated MAAs gene expression in melanomas ...

PURPOSE This was a pilot study conducted to examine the expression of osteopontin in uveal melanoma and to determine whether serum osteopontin can be used in detecting metastatic uveal melanoma. METHODS Osteopontin mRNA was measured in three uveal melanoma cell lines of various invasive potential by real-time PCR. Tissue sections of primary and metastatic uveal melanomas were stained for oste...

PURPOSE Approximately 40% of patients with metastatic melanoma develop brain metastases. Our purpose was to identify genes aberrantly expressed in melanoma that might be associated with propensity for brain homing. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We studied gene expression profiles in a cell line model of brain metastasis (cerebrotropic A375Br cells vs. parental A375P cells) and compared them with profil...

PURPOSE Poor prognosis of metastatic melanoma mandates the development of novel strategies for its treatment and prevention. In this study, the effect of lupeol, a diet-based triterpene, was determined on the growth and tumorigenicity of human melanoma cells in vitro and in vivo. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Normal human melanocytes, and human metastatic (451Lu) and nonmetastatic (WM35) cells were tre...