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Quantitative real‐time RT‐PCR in sentinel lymph nodes from melanoma patients
Author(s) -
RIBERHANSEN RIKKE,
ABRAHAMSEN HELENE NORTVIG,
SORENSEN BOE SANDAHL,
HAMILTONDUTOIT STEPHEN JACQUES,
STEINICHE TORBEN
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0463.2008.00960.x
Subject(s) - histology , lymph , medicine , melanoma , pathology , real time polymerase chain reaction , clinical significance , polymerase chain reaction , biology , gene , cancer research , biochemistry
Quantitative real‐time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) for specific melanoma markers is more sensitive than histology for detecting cells of melanocytic origin in sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) in cutaneous melanoma. The clinical significance of a positive qRT‐PCR analysis is unclear. We performed qRT‐PCR for the presence of MART‐1 and tyrosinase in SLNs from 93 melanoma patients, and then followed these patients clinically (median follow‐up time 43.5 months). We found a significant correlation between disease progression and presence of MART‐1 mRNA in SLNs (p=0.02), but no correlation with the amount of MART‐1 mRNA as measured by qRT‐PCR. No correlation between histology and recurrence was detected, recurrence rates being low in both histology‐negative (12%) and ‐positive (15%) patients. We found a significant difference in disease recurrence between patients positive by both histology and RT‐PCR and patients negative by both methods (15% vs 0%, p=0.02). However, a significant difference in disease recurrence was also found when comparing patients negative by both methods with patients positive by RT‐PCR but negative by histology (0% vs 19%, p=0.009). This suggests that the presence of submicroscopic metastases may influence prognosis, indicating that RT‐PCR detection of melanocytic cells in SLNs may be an important diagnostic marker.