BACKGROUND Uveal melanoma is the most common malignancy of the adult eye. The overall mortality rate is high because this aggressive cancer often metastasizes before ophthalmic diagnosis. Quantitative proteomic analysis of primary metastasizing and non-metastasizing tumors was pursued for insights into mechanisms and biomarkers of uveal melanoma metastasis. METHODS Eight metastatic and 7 non-...

Background: Malignant melanoma is a highly metastatic cutaneous cancer and typically refractory to chemotherapy. Deregulated apoptosis has been identified as a major cause of cancer drug resistance, and upregulated expression of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein melanom, an inhibitor of apoptosis (ML-IAP) is frequent in melanoma. Methods: Based on the conclusion that ML-IAP expression contribu...

Malignant melanoma in children is rare. It can arise from congenital melanocytic nevi. In pediatric patients, diagnosis of melanoma is difficult and challenging because the physicians have a low index of suspicion. Marrow metastasis in malignant melanoma especially in children is extremely uncommon. Here, the authors reported a 5 year old girl who was presented with a 4 month history of pelvic ...

BACKGROUND Several patients presented with a single focus of presumed cutaneous metastatic melanoma with an unknown primary tumor based on clinical and histologic staging criteria of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC). This population is classified as having stage IV disease by the current AJCC staging system, which carries a dismal prognosis (5%-18% 5-year survival). Our clinical ob...

Metastatic malignant melanoma has a wide spectrum of histopathologic patterns and often lacks melanin pigment. Without a known primary tumor, the diagnosis of metastatic malignant melanoma relies on a combination of morphology and immunohistochemical profile. Infrequently, commonly used markers for melanoma (S100, HMB45, Melan-A and Tyrosinase A) are negative. These cases pose critical diagnost...

Because of the paucity of available tissue, little information has previously been available regarding the gene expression profiles of primary melanomas. To understand the molecular basis of melanoma progression, we compared the gene expression profiles of a series of nevi, primary melanomas, and melanoma metastases. We found that metastatic melanomas exhibit two dichotomous patterns of gene ex...

Notch is a highly conserved transmembrane receptor that determines cell fate. Notch signaling denotes cleavage of the Notch intracellular domain, its translocation to the nucleus, and subsequent activation of target gene transcription. Involvement of Notch signaling in several cancers is well known, but its role in melanoma remains poorly characterized. Here we show that the Notch1 pathway is a...

Metastatic melanoma from an unknown primary (MUP) is rare; its occurrence in the gastrointestinal tract is of exceedingly low prevalence. We report a case of a 73-year-old man with metastatic malignant melanoma to the colon from an unknown primary. The rarity of MUP and importance of screening for gastrointestinal metastasis in patients with malignant melanoma are discussed along with the role ...