Laser treatment of solar lentigines on dorsum of hands: QS Ruby laser versus ablative CO2 fractional laser - a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Lentigines solares (LS) on the dorsum of hands are often esthetically disturbing. Q-switched ruby laser treatment is highly effective in the treatment of these lesions. Ablative fractional photothermolysis may be a suitable alternative.

Clinical implications of distinct metastasizing preferences of different melanoma subtypes.

Background: The incidence and mortality of malignant melanoma have been rising during the past decades, the latter being due to the high invasion capacity and the metastatic potential of melanoma cells to distant organs.

Objective: We investigated the distribution pattern of melanoma metastases taking into account different clinicopathological subtypes of melanoma.

Methods: We studied 310 stage IV (AJCC 2009) melanoma patients retrospectively with regard to potential correlations between frequency and occurrence of metastasis and the genetic background and pathological/clinical melanoma subtypes.

Detecting BRAF Mutations in Formalin-Fixed Melanoma: Experiences with Two State-of-the-Art Techniques.

Background: Melanoma is characterized by a high frequency of BRAF mutations. It is unknown if the BRAF mutation status has any predictive value for therapeutic approaches such as angiogenesis inhibition.

Patients And Methods: We used 2 methods to analyze the BRAF mutation status in 52 of 62 melanoma patients.

Sinonasal, genital and acrolentiginous melanomas show distinct characteristics of KIT expression and mutations.

KIT aberrations predict the outcome of targeted therapies in acrolentiginous (ALM) and mucosal (MM) melanoma patients. KIT immunoreactivity and mutation status was assessed in 41 ALM and 25 MM patients. Of these, 19 ALM and 15 MM patients had matched primary and metastatic lesions.

Intense pulsed light.

In addition to lasers, intense pulsed light (IPL) sources are widely used in medicine to treat various indications, such as vascular lesions, irregular pigmentation and hypertrichosis. In contrast to lasers, IPL systems are broadband flash lamps that emit polychromatic incoherent light ranging from visible to infrared (500-1,300 nm). Optical filters are used to tailor the polychromatic light to specific needs.

A proliferative melanoma cell phenotype is responsive to RAF/MEK inhibition independent of BRAF mutation status.

Oncogenic mutations within the MAPK pathway are frequent in melanoma, and targeting of MAPK signaling has yielded spectacular responses in a significant number of patients that last for several months before relapsing. We investigated the effects of two different inhibitors of MAPK signaling in proliferative and invasive melanoma cell cultures with various mutations in the MAPK pathway. Proliferative melanoma cells were more susceptible to pathway inhibition than invasive phenotype cells, irrespective of BRAF mutation status, while invasive phenotype cell response was dependent on BRAF mutation status.