Old morphological features and new immunohistochemical markers in prognosis of cutaneous melanoma: Where are we now?

Aim: Cutaneous melanoma is an aggressive malignant tumour of skin melanocytes with increasing incidence all over theworld. Mortality in cutaneous melanoma is related to metastatic spread to sites distant from the primary tumour, so the early diagnosisresults fundamental in survival of patients. This mini review provides a concise overview of the most common methods used in thedetection of cutaneous melanoma and reveals some immunohistochemical proteins, which possess suitable characteristics to becomevalid prognostic biomarkers to be introduced in clinical practice.Materials and methods: The literature search was conducted on PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar using appropriatekeywords in relation to cutaneous melanoma diagnosis and prognosis.Discussion: Nowadays, the most common method for detecting cutaneous melanoma is visual diagnosis, based on lesionmorphology. From the histopathological point of view, the staging of melanoma has been defined in the classification of theAmerican Joint Committee on Cancer. This system of classification allows to predict, with remarkable accuracy, the clinical courseof the disease and patient survival, but it needs to be improved, especially in cases of ambiguous melanocytic lesions. In recent years,many studies attempted to identify, by Immunohistochemistry method, the "ideal" biomarker in melanoma, analysed individually or incombination with conventional prognostic parameters, however, no prognostic biomarker has yet been translated into practice.Conclusion: This review emphasizes the need to define a profile of prognostic biomarkers, particularly in the early stages ofthe disease, reinforcing the conventional parameters, for the better detection of the pathologic lesion and for an appropriate managementof the disease.