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Dermato
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Biomarkers for Skin Cancer Patients
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Biomarkers for Skin Cancer Patients

A special issue of Dermato (ISSN 2673-6179).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 4993

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Thilo Gambichler

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Skin Cancer Center, Department of Dermatology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
2. Department of Dermatology, Christian Hospital Unna, Unna, Germany
Interests: skin cancers; cutaneous melanoma; Merkel cell carcinoma; cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer biomarkers can be measured in blood, organ tissue, or bodily fluids, and are increasingly used to identify the presence of malignancy and help to determine its stage, subtype, and whether a patient will respond to treatment, experience recurrent disease, or even die from cancer. Today, biomarkers play a crucial role in the diagnosis, therapy, and management of patients suffering from skin malignancies. Recent advances in detection techniques (e.g., NGS, multicolor flow cytometry, circulating tumor cells) have enabled researchers and physicians to gain greater insights into the molecular mechanisms that underlie pathologies such as skin cancers. Precision treatment regimens, including targeted therapies and immunotherapies, often require the identification of subsets of patients who will respond to the aforementioned regimens. On the other hand, biomarkers are increasingly established to detect patients with more favorable prognosis who may safely waive over-treatment. Moreover, biomarkers may help to identify patients who are at lower risk and may therefore undergo a follow-up regimen that is less strict. However, there are still challenges in the development of novel noninvasive biomarkers with greater clinical performance. The present Special Issue particularly focusses on original research findings and reviews on skin cancer biomarkers, which may include (but are not limited to) genetic, genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, cellular, and morphologic factors predisposing to skin cancers, indicating the presence of skin cancer, or correlating with treatment response and disease outcome. Of course, other types of manuscripts (e.g., case reports, commentaries) are welcome as well.

Prof. Dr. Thilo Gambichler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Dermato is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Biomarkers
  • Personalized medicine
  • Melanoma
  • Merkel cell carcinoma
  • Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma
  • Gene expression profiles

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

6 pages, 933 KiB  
Article
The Influence of c-Kit and NRAS Mutation on Patients’ Survival in Metastatic Melanoma Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Chemotherapy
by Tom Möller and Hans-Joachim Schulze
Dermato 2022, 2(2), 53-58; https://doi.org/10.3390/dermato2020006 - 01 Jun 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2268
Abstract
The high metastasis and mortality rates of melanoma in the era of chemotherapy have decreased significantly over the last 10 years. The success is owed largely to the introduction of targeted therapy of oncogenes and immunotherapies, such as checkpoint inhibitors. The aim of [...] Read more.
The high metastasis and mortality rates of melanoma in the era of chemotherapy have decreased significantly over the last 10 years. The success is owed largely to the introduction of targeted therapy of oncogenes and immunotherapies, such as checkpoint inhibitors. The aim of the present retrospective, monocentric study is to investigate the impact of chemotherapy or immunotherapy in 550 patients with metastatic melanoma between the years of 2010 and 2019, looking at overall survival while considering BRAF/NRAS/c-KIT mutation status. A total of 17 patients were found to have a c-KIT mutation in exon 11, 13 or 17, including 58.3% with acral lentiginous melanoma, with 53% localized primarily in the lower limbs. In 13.3% of the 231 NRAS-mutated melanomas, primary tumor location was found to be in UV-exposed skin such as on the head and neck, thus about 50% lower than in the 302 patients with wild-type (BRAF-/NRAS-/cKIT-negative) melanoma. Patients with NRAS-mutated melanomas had a significantly lower probability of survival compared to patients with wild-type melanomas, irrespective of the recommendations of the clinical guideline on drug therapy for metastatic melanoma that have been in force since 2010. In contrast to patients with wild-type melanoma who showed a higher probability of survival receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors, the overall survival of patients with NRAS-mutated metastatic melanoma was not more favorable after therapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors compared to chemotherapy treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomarkers for Skin Cancer Patients)
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7 pages, 228 KiB  
Article
Prognostic Performance of the Derived Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio in Stage IV Melanoma Patients Treated with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
by Thilo Gambichler, Rita Mansour, Christina H. Scheel, Shayda Said, Nessr Abu Rached and Laura Susok
Dermato 2022, 2(2), 14-20; https://doi.org/10.3390/dermato2020003 - 08 Apr 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2145
Abstract
The purpose was to evaluate the prognostic performance of the derived neutrophil–to-lymphocyte ratio (dNLR) in patients with metastatic cutaneous melanoma (CM) treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). We retrospectively investigated 41 CM patients with stage IV disease who had the indication for treatment [...] Read more.
The purpose was to evaluate the prognostic performance of the derived neutrophil–to-lymphocyte ratio (dNLR) in patients with metastatic cutaneous melanoma (CM) treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). We retrospectively investigated 41 CM patients with stage IV disease who had the indication for treatment with ICI. dNLR as well as NLR were routinely determined prior to the start of ICI treatment. The dNLR and NLR were calculated as follows: dNLR = absolute neutrophil counts (ANC)/white blood cell count −ANC and NRL = ANC/absolute lymphocyte counts, respectively. Follow-up of the patients was performed in line with current guidelines. In univariate analysis, dNLR (p = 0.027 and p = 0.032) as well as NLR (p = 0.0023 and p = 0.0036) were the only parameters which were significantly associated with the best overall response (BOR) and disease control rate (DCR) on ROC curve analyses. NLR negatively correlated with CM-specific survival (r = −0.32, p = 0.043). CM-specific deaths were significantly associated with the absence of immune-related adverse events (p = 0.043), elevated S100 calcium-binding protein B (S100B) at baseline (p = 0.0006), and dNLR (p = 0.024). In multivariate analyses, NLR was the only significant independent predictor for BOR (p = 0.014; odds ratio: 1.7; and 95% CI 1.11 to 2.61) and DCR (p = 0.019; odds ratio: 1.5; and 95% CI 1.07 to 2.19). Regarding CM-specific death, however, normal baseline S100B was the only significant independent predictor (p = 0.0020; odds ratio: 0.074; and 95% CI 0.014 to 0.38) for survival. Our data demonstrate that baseline NLR seems to be superior to dNLR in the prediction of ICI response in CM patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomarkers for Skin Cancer Patients)
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