Prognostic value of galectin-3 in primary cutaneous melanoma.

Galectin-3, one of the β-galactoside-binding lectins, has been suggested as a marker of disease progression in melanoma patients because of its overexpression observed in recent studies. However, prognostic value of galectin-3 in primary cutaneous melanoma (PCM) has not been clearly defined. The aim of the study was to analyse whether the intensity of galectin-3 expression can predict survival in patients with PMC. Galectin-3 expression was evaluated using immunohistochemistry in 104 PCM samples, including 71 (68.2%) superficial spreading (SSM) and 33 (31.8%) nodular melanomas (NM). Significant difference of galectin-3 expression between SSM and NM was determined (P < 0.001). Increased galectin-3 expression was positively correlated with tumour thickness (P < 0.001), Clark (P < 0.001) and Breslow (P < 0.001) stage, mitotic rate (P < 0.001), presence of tumour ulceration (P < 0.001), lymphatic invasion (P = 0.018), positive sentinel lymph node (P < 0.022) and distant metastases (P < 0.001). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed an association between increased galectin-3 expression and reduced recurrence-free survival (RFS) (P = 0.001) and reduced disease-specific survival (DSS) (P = 0.015). In Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, significant predictors of reduced RFS were positive sentinel lymph node (P = 0.025) and lymphovascular invasion (P = 0.021), whereas predictors of DSS were tumour thickness (P = 0.012), lymphovascular invasion (P = 0.047), Clark stage (P = 0.029) and location of tumour on upper extremities (P = 0.024). Our results support the potential role of galectin-3 in PCM development, progression and metastasis. Moreover, galectin-3 could serve as an additional prognostic marker that might help in further stratifying the risk of disease progression and metastasis in patients with PMC.

Buljan M ，Šitum M ，Tomas D ，Milošević M ，Krušlin B ... -  《-》

Regression does not predict nodal metastasis or survival in patients with cutaneous melanoma.

Burton AL ，Gilbert J ，Farmer RW ，Stromberg AJ ，Hagendoorn L ，Ross MI ，Martin RC 2nd ，McMasters KM ，Scoggins CR ，Callender GG ... -  《-》

Prognostic significance of nuclear receptor coactivator-3 overexpression in primary cutaneous melanoma.

Rangel J ，Torabian S ，Shaikh L ，Nosrati M ，Baehner FL ，Haqq C ，Leong SP ，Miller JR 3rd ，Sagebiel RW ，Kashani-Sabet M ... -  《-》

Osteopontin as a molecular prognostic marker for melanoma.

Osteopontin has been suggested as a marker of disease progression in patients with melanoma because of its overexpression in recent microarray analyses. However, its prognostic role in melanoma has not been fully defined. Osteopontin expression status was examined using immunohistochemical analysis of a tissue microarray that contained primary cutaneous melanomas from 345 patients. The correlation between osteopontin expression and several histologic markers for melanoma was assessed by using the Chi-square test and the Le directional test. The impact of osteopontin expression on recurrence-free survival (RFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) of patients with melanoma was examined using Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analyses. The impact of increasing osteopontin expression on sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastasis was assessed using logistic regression analysis. High osteopontin expression was associated with increased tumor thickness (P = .037), Clark level (P = .035), and mitotic index (P = .046). Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated an association between osteopontin expression and reduced RFS (P < .03) and DSS (P = .05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that high osteopontin immunostaining had an independent impact on the DSS of this melanoma cohort (P = .049). In addition, osteopontin expression was significantly predictive of SLN metastasis (P = .009) and SLN burden, as assessed by the mean number of SLN metastases (P = .0025). Multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated an independent role for osteopontin expression in predicting SLN status (P = .0062). The current results validated the role of osteopontin as an independent prognostic marker for melanoma and provided new evidence for its predictive role in melanoma lymph node metastasis.

Rangel J ，Nosrati M ，Torabian S ，Shaikh L ，Leong SP ，Haqq C ，Miller JR 3rd ，Sagebiel RW ，Kashani-Sabet M ... -  《CANCER》

Association of galectin-3 expression with melanoma progression and prognosis.

Galectin-3 plays an important role in adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, angiogenesis and metastasis in multiple tumours. To investigate the role of galectin-3 in melanoma pathogenesis we examined the expression of galectin-3 in melanocytic lesions and analysed the correlation between galectin-3 expression and clinicopathologic factors including patient survival and BRAF mutation status. We evaluated the expression of galectin-3 in 53 cases of benign naevi, 31 cases of dysplastic naevi, 59 in-situ melanomas, 314 cases of primary melanoma and 69 metastatic melanomas using tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry. Marked differences in expression of galectin-3 were seen between different categories of melanocytic lesions (ANOVA p<0.0001). An increase in expression of galectin-3 between benign naevi and thin primary melanomas and a progressive decrease in expression between thin primary melanomas and thicker melanomas or metastatic melanomas was seen. Strong galectin-3 expression was associated with improved overall survival (p=0.002 and p=0.0002 for cytoplasmic and nuclear expression, respectively) and melanoma-specific survival (p=0.017 and p=0.003 for cytoplasmic and nuclear expression, respectively). A multifactorial Cox regression analysis suggested that galectin-3 expression was an independent prognostic marker for overall survival in melanoma (risk ratio 0.73, 95% CI 0.547-0.970, p=0.031 for cytoplasmic expression and risk ratio 0.76, 95% CI 0.587-0.985, p=0.036 for nuclear expression). No association between galectin-3 expression and BRAF mutation status was observed. This study suggests that galectin-3 is a marker of progression in melanocytic lesions and a novel prognostic marker in primary melanoma.

Brown ER ，Doig T ，Anderson N ，Brenn T ，Doherty V ，Xu Y ，Bartlett JM ，Smyth JF ，Melton DW ... -  《-》