What's new in malignant melanoma, biology and epidemiology

The authors relate about the biological pattern of melanoma cells; melanoma cells express melanoma associated antigens (MAA), which are not specific of melanoma cells and melanocytic cells of advanced stages of tumor progression, but express the melanoma progression markers (MPM). It's difficult to assess the expression of MPM mostly because of lack of a large multicenter comparison and different results due to different methods. The demonstration that biological response modifiers (BRMs), in vitro, inhibit the growth of melanoma cell lines and that they modulate the expression of MAA justify their therapeutic application. Some groups of basic scientists have demonstrated the genetic abnormalities coding for dysplastic nevi and melanoma to be expressed on chromosomes 1, 6, 7, 9 and 10. It isn't clear yet, whether these abnormalities involve all melanomas. The risk factors for cutaneous melanoma: family histoty of melanoma; previous melanoma; large number of common melanocytic nevi; history of severe burning, tendency of freckling, inability to tan; presence of atypical moles but also the increasing number of common melanocytic nevi are important predictive factors to detect individuals at risk.