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Tyrosinase as marker for detection of melanoma cells in peripheral blood of patients with melanoma: association with clinical stage and prognostic factors

Reverse trasnscription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for tyrosinase mRNA is specific and sensitive method for detection of circulating melanoma cells in peripheral blood of melanoma patients. But, due to conflicting results regarding its prognostic value, its clinical relevance is still under debate. The aim of this study was to investigate if there is a correlation between the distribution of tyrosinase value and stage of the disease and other prognostic factors in melanoma patients. Blood samples from 201 melanoma patients in all stages of the disease and 40 healthy volunteers were analyzed by RT-PCR for the expression of tyrosinase. The threshold for detection of tyrosinase was set low enough to detect 50 melanoma cells in 10 mL of peripheral blood. All samples from healthy volunteers were negative for tyrosinase. Out of 201 melanoma patients, 20 (10%) were positive for tyrosinase. Positive value of tyrosinase was found in 5.2% of stage 1 ; 7.6% of stage 2 ; 13.9% of stage 3 ; and 21.4% of stage 4 patients. A trend of increase in the proportion of patients with positive values of tyrosinase with increasing stage of disease has been shown, which indicates potential prognostic value of tyrosinase. No statistically significant correlation was found between the detection of circulating melanoma cells and other prognostic factors investigated.

tyrosinase; circulating tumor cells; melanoma

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