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Activated Protein Kinases and Overall Survival in Patients with Metastatic Melanoma.
Author(s) -
Diwan A. H.,
Kim K.,
Zhang P.,
Prieto V. G.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of cutaneous pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.597
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1600-0560
pISSN - 0303-6987
DOI - 10.1111/j.0303-6987.2005.320bj.x
Subject(s) - immunohistochemistry , melanoma , kinase , metastasis , medicine , stage (stratigraphy) , cancer research , pathology , protein kinase b , tyrosine kinase , metastatic melanoma , phosphorylation , oncology , cancer , biology , receptor , paleontology , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology
Protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) are proteins that may play importants roles in survival, proliferation and progression to metastasis in several tumors, including melanoma. There is little information on the expression pattern of the phosphorylated (i.e. activated) forms of such kinases in melanoma and their impact on overall survival (OS). We sought to determine the expression, by immunohistochemistry, of phosphorylated MAP kinase (pMAPK), Akt (pAkt) and C‐kit (pCkit) in primary and metastatic melanoma, and their correlation with OS. Fifteen patients with Stage III and Stage IV (metastatic melanoma) disease were randomly selected from the UT MD Anderson database. Expression was rated by two investigators on intensity (negative, weak, moderate, and strong) and proportion of reactive tumor cells (0 = <5%, 1 = 5–25%, 2 = >25–75%, 3 = >75%). Eleven of the 15 tumors (primary and/or metatasis) exhibited pMAPK expression (73%). Corresponding percentages were 100% for pAKT and <50%(7/15) for pCkit. OS ranged from less than one year to 9 years. However, there was no correlation between OS and expression of any of these markers.