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Identifying molecular properties that allow seemingly harmless small melanomas to spread to distant organs

Miguel Burnier, Jr., M.D. Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, QC.

Malignant melanoma is a devastating skin cancer that dramatically increased in prevalence and mortality over the past 3 decades. One group of patients that are particularly perplexing to clinicians are those with small melanomas that somehow gain the ability to spread to distant organs without passing through the lymph nodes. Cytokeratins (CK) are proteins that have a variety of roles within the cell, including movement within the body.

Tumors with abundant CK levels tend to be more aggressive and spread quickly to distant sites. We will be testing to see if tumors with high levels of CK are more likely to be able to bypass the lymph nodes and spread throughout the body using an alternate route. Our study could have significant implications for patients with melanoma. First, new therapies could be designed to target CK and block its ability to allow tumor cells to become mobile. Second, CK could be used as a marker to predict prognosis and allow physicians to treat patients according to how aggressive their disease is.

Finally, understanding more about the way tumor cells spread has the potential to benefit all cancer patients and lead to more promising research in the future.

(C2006)