Access Dermatology

Breaking News

• Home »
• Breaking News »
• Breaking News article

Cytoplasmic ERK a potential prognostic marker in primary melanomas

A recent study addressed the impact of NRAS and BRAF mutations, Akt and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activation and clinicopathological factors on survival in T1-2 primary cutaneous melanomas (thickness ≤ 2 mm). A total of 52 T1-2 tumors were selected from biopsies of two groups of melanoma patients: those who survived more than 5 years after diagnosis of primary tumor and those who lived less than 5 years. There were no significant clinical or histopathological differences between the groups, except for a higher ulceration frequency in the short survival group (p = 0.003). Patients with BRAF-mutated tumors had significantly worse survival (p = 0.0219) than patients with wild-type tumors, whereas patients with ...