Projects / Programmes
Role of tyrosinase RT-PCR in staging of patients with malignant melanoma
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 3.04.00 |
Medical sciences |
Oncology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| B520 |
Biomedical sciences |
General pathology, pathological anatomy |
| B200 |
Biomedical sciences |
Cytology, oncology, cancerology |
malignant melanoma, tyrosinase, RT-PCR
Researchers (14)
Organisations (1)
| no. |
Code |
Research organisation |
City |
Registration number |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
0302 |
Institute of Oncology Ljubljana |
Ljubljana |
5055733000 |
15,455 |
Abstract
Staging of patients with malignant melanoma (MM) is crucial to determine patients prognosis and plannig systemic adjuvant treatment. Conventional clinical techniques (x-rays, ultrasound, CT, liver and bichemical blood tests) can not differentiate betwen patients with micrometastases and bad prognosis and patients without micrometastases and excellent prognosis. With a molecular biological technique of reverse transcription and polimerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) it is possible to detect MM cells in periferial blood or tissues already at preclinical level. We are exploiting the fact that the tyrosinase gene is only expressed in normal and malignantly altered melanocytes. Tyrosinase is a key enzyme in melanin synthesis. Normally, melanocytes are not present in the peripheral blood circulation; therefore, the presence of tyrosinase mRNA in the peripheral blood is considered as a proof of MM cells.We isolate tyrosinase mRNA from lymph node tissue obtained by sentinel node biopsy or from peripheral venous blood sample.
Objectives of our study are as follows:
1. to determine the feasibility of performing tyrosinase RT-PCR using lymph node samples or peripheral blood from patients with MM,
2. to determine the ability of tyrosinase RT-PCR to predict relapse of disease in these patients, and
3. to determine the correlation of positive tyrosinase RT-PCR results from peripheral blood with disease stage.
The study will include patients with histologically proven MM stage II or III. In the patients with stage II, we will perform sentinel node biopsy and tyrosinase RT-PCR from lymph node tissue and from peripheral venous blood. In patients with stage III, tyrosinase RT-PCR will be performed only from peripheral venous blood.
Before entering into the study, all patients will sign an informed consent. The decision about adjuvant treatment will be made according to the standard criteria at our institution regardless of the results of tyrosinase RT-PCR.
The recruitment time will take 3 years and all the patients will be followed for at least 3 years after the inclusion of the last patient.
