Metastases are thought to arise from cancer stem cells and their tumor initiating abilities are required for the establishment of metastases. Nevertheless, in metastatic melanoma, the nature of cancer stem cells is under debate and their contribution to metastasis formation remains unknown. Using an experimental metastasis model, we discovered that high levels of the WNT receptor, FZD7, correla...

BACKGROUND Oncoproteomics is the study of proteins and their interactions in a cancer cell by proteomic technologies and has the potential to revolutionize clinical practice, including cancer diagnosis. Recent technological advances in the analysis of the human genome have opened the door to improving our primitive understanding of the gene expression patterns in cancer. The examination of the ...

PURPOSE Identification of cancer/testis antigens useful for diagnosis or immunotherapy of cancers was attempted by cDNA expression cloning with patients' sera (SEREX). EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN cDNA expression libraries made from testis or endometrial cancer cell lines were screened using sera from patients with endometrial cancer or melanoma patients immunized with dendritic cells pulsed with auto...

Biological-based (BbCAM) methods from complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) may interact with cancer treatments, reduce efficacy, or enhance adverse effects. Although CAM usage has been evaluated well in other cancer entities, data on melanoma patients are still missing. The aim of this study was to determine CAM usage of melanoma patients using a standardized questionnaire to identify p...

Melanoma is one of the most dangerous forms of cancer. The five-year survival rate is 98% if it is detected early. However, this rate plummets to 62% for regional disease and below 15% when tumors have spread to distant sites. Furthermore, the incidence of melanoma has been rising by about 3% per year, while the incidence of most common cancers is decreasing. A handful of targeted therapies hav...

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) patients are susceptible to developing cancers of the central and peripheral nervous system due loss function mutations in neurofibromin, leading hyperactivation RAS proto-oncogene downstream signaling pathways. Although skin reported with NF1, it is unknown whether NF1 have increased susceptibility cancer compared general population. To evaluate association betwe...

Several epidemiological studies have reported an inverse association between vitiligo and skin cancers such as cutaneous melanoma, basal cell carcinoma squamous carcinoma. There are conflicting reports whether this is a consequence of increased immunosurveillance observed in patients or rather shared genetic contribution. The latter hypothesis however, not currently sustained by available evide...

Melanoma is an exceptionally aggressive cancer with limited treatment options. As such, the idea that a minority of tumor cells, termed melanoma stem cells, are actually responsible for the progression of the disease offers up new possibilities for targeted therapies. However, reliable identification of these melanoma stem cells is complicated by the lack of clearly defined markers to distingui...

Skin cancer is the deadliest form of cancers in humans. Skin cancer is commonly known as Melanoma. Skin Cancers are of two typesBenign and Malignant Melanoma. Melanoma can be cured completely if it is detected early. Both benign and malignant melanoma appear in similar. So it is difficult to differentiate both. This is a main problem with the early skin cancer detection. Only an expert dermatol...