Review article

https://doi.org/10.21860/52;3_370

Skin melanoma heterogeneity and its molecular aspects

Miljenko Katunarić ; Zavod za patologiju i patološku anatomiju, Medicinski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, Rijeka
Andrea Dekanić ; Zavod za patologiju i patološku anatomiju, Medicinski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, Rijeka
Gordana Zamolo ; Zavod za patologiju i patološku anatomiju, Medicinski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, Rijeka

Abstract

Croatia has recorded a 2.7 percent annual increase in melanoma of the skin mortality. Several studies have found that people who develop melanoma on the abdomen carry a significantly higher number of nevi than people who develop melanoma on the head or neck. In contrast, melanoma on the head and neck is associated with solar keratosis, but not with the number of nevi. The correlation was found between lentigo maligna melanoma incidence and exposure to the sun. No similar correlation was found in other histological subtypes of melanoma. New molecular genetic studies support the concept that melanomas arising in the central parts of the body of young people carring multiple nevi are biologically different from melanoma caused by cumulative action of the sun-damaged skin in older patients. Epidemiological expert analysis quickly determined that a high degree of exposure to the sun means a larger number of moles in early childhood. Multiple studies have shown that BRAF-mutant melanoma most often fall into the superficial-spreading subtype and appear on skin that has occasionally been exposed to the sun and that they more often methasize to regional lymph nodes than melanomas without the BRAF mutation. KITmutated melanoma appear in the skin, the nails, the mucosa or the skin, which is damaged by the sun and usually exclude BRAF mutations. Melanomas with this mutation often carry na poorly delimited in situ components as a result of enhanced lateral mobility of neoplastic melanocytes after the SCF KIT pathway activation.

Keywords

BRAF; KIT; melanoma; nevus; pathohistology; RAS

Hrčak ID:

163961

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/163961

Publication date:

1.9.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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