Prognostic Factors in Cutaneous Melanoma

摘要: As with all malignant tumors, the biological potential of any given primary melanoma is encrypted in genome and epigenetic elements clone(s) cells giving rise to that tumor, expression governed by currently obscure mechanisms stochastic probability. At present, code indecipherable at systems biology level coordinately executes tumor’s behavior within host. Occasional thin, microinvasive melanomas seemingly favorable attributes are sometimes rapidly fatal, thick, bulky exist despite pessimistic expectations remain clinically inert over 5, 10, or more years observation. Because a heterogeneous disease because actual melanocytic tumor thus opaque, one does what human societies have done since time immemorial: searches for physical signs nature. The process resorting such surrogate phenotypic prognostic markers/signs allows categorization which turn generates classification schema enable an understanding which, it hoped, may represent best, albeit rudimentary, approximation neoplastic genotype its potential.