PURPOSE. It is known that the pRb pathway cell-cycle inhibitor p16 plays a significant role in cutaneous melanoma and that alteration of p16, which resides within the 9p21-22 locus that also contains p15 and p14, may occur in up to one third of uveal melanomas. The absence of TGF responsiveness noted in cultured uveal melanoma cells also suggests that the TGF pathway plays a role in the formati...

THE literature on malignant melanoma of the uveal tract is extensive but case reports of multiple malignant tumours of this type are infrequent. Freckles and naevi are present in approximately 50 per cent. of normal eyes and "are even more frequent and larger in eyes which also contain malignant melanoma of the uveal tract" (Hogan and Zimmerman, 1962). According to Reese (1956), when the malign...

PURPOSE Overexpression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and overrepresentation of the 6p region have been reported with a wide variation in uveal melanoma. The aim of the current study is to identify the frequency of copy number alteration in the 6p21 region and its correlation with the expression of VEGF in uveal melanoma. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We studied 88 uveal melanomas for cop...

PURPOSE To examine whether GNAQ and GNA11 somatic mutations previously identified in uveal melanomas of Caucasians are associated with uveal melanomas in Chinese patients. METHODS Uveal melanomas treated by primary enucleation in Chinese patients underwent a mutation analysis of GNAQ and GNA11 with sequencing of exon 5 and exon 4. RESULTS The study included 50 patients with uveal melanoma a...

PURPOSE To model the behavior of uveal melanoma in the liver. METHODS A 15-muL suspension of metastatic MUM2B or either primary OCM1 or M619 uveal melanoma cells was injected into the liver parenchyma of 105 CB17 SCID mice through a 1-cm abdominal incision. Animals were killed at 2, 4, 6, or 8 weeks after injection. Before euthanatization, 3% FITC-BSA buffer was injected into the retro-orbita...

PURPOSE Because the expression of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) antigens is important for immunologic recognition of tumor cells, we determined expression of locus-specific HLA class I antigens in uveal melanoma and tested whether the level of HLA expression was related to prognosis or associated with known prognostic parameters. METHODS Expression of HLA-A and -B antigens was determined on 3...

Uveal melanoma is the most common type of primary eye cancer in adults, affecting 0.7/100,000 of the Western population yearly (Egan et al., 1988). The melanoma originates from neural crest derived melanocytes of the uvea (choroid, ciliary body and iris) and despite enucleation or conservative treatment half of patients die of, most often late appearing, metastatic disease (15-year survival: 53...

BACKGROUND Uveal melanoma is a tumour with a high incidence of metastasis and a high mortality rate. Additional therapies to obtain a better local control or an effective treatment of metastases are necessary. Interferons may be applied. METHODS The effects of human interferon alfa and gamma on proliferation and expression of immunologically important molecules of human uveal melanoma cells i...

BACKGROUND Improved local treatment of uveal melanoma makes it possible for many patients to retain the affected eye, but a proportion will develop secondary complications such as neovascularisation of the iris (NVI) and require enucleation. Although vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) is known to correlate with NVI and can cause NVI in experimental models, this pro-angiogenic cytokin...

BACKGROUND Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) was increasingly recognized as a form of aggressive melanoma acquiring blood supply. Genistein had attracted much attention as a potential anticancer agent. Therefore, we examined the effect of Genistein on VM in human uveal melanoma cells. METHODS VM structure was detected by periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining for uveal melanoma C918 cells cultured on th...