BRAF-V600 mutations have no prognostic impact in stage IV melanoma patients treated with monochemotherapy.

Background: The impact of BRAF tumor mutations on the natural course of disease of melanoma patients is controversial.

Patients And Methods: We analyzed the mutational status and overall survival of 215 patients receiving treatment with dacarbazine or temozolomide. All patients who started first-line treatment at our institution between 2000 and 2010 were included to prevent selection and bias due to thereafter arising therapeutic options.

Survival according to BRAF-V600 tumor mutations--an analysis of 437 patients with primary melanoma.

The prognostic impact of BRAF-V600 tumor mutations in stage I/II melanoma patients has not yet been analyzed in detail. We investigated primary tumors of 437 patients diagnosed between 1989 and 2006 by Sanger sequencing. Mutations were detected in 38.

Rare BRAF mutations in melanoma patients: implications for molecular testing in clinical practice.

Background: The detection of V600E BRAF mutation in melanoma is fundamental since here BRAF inhibitors represent an effective treatment. Non-V600E BRAF mutations that may also respond are not detected by certain screening methods. Thus, knowledge about detection of these mutations is needed.

No evidence of viral genomes in whole-transcriptome sequencing of three melanoma metastases.

Several viruses are known to cause cancer, such as human herpes virus 8 in Kaposi sarcoma and human papilloma viruses in cervical cancer. Recently, Merkel cell polyoma virus (MCPyV) has been described in 80% of Merkel cell carcinomas (MCC). Similarly to MCC and Kaposi sarcoma, melanoma incidence is increased in immunosuppressed patients.