Pathophysiology and molecular characterization of cutaneous and mucosal melanoma

Dissertant

al-Khatib, Hanadi

Thesis advisor

Farraj, Muhammad
Isawi, Tamir

Comitee Members

Hammudah, Wail
Abu Fkhaida, Bilal

University

Birzeit University

Faculty

Faculty of Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Professions

University Country

Palestine (West Bank)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2017

English Abstract

Cutaneous melanoma (CM) is an aggressive fatal skin malignancy arises in proliferating pigment producing melanocytes.

Its characterized by ABCDE criteria, and diagnosed by applying this mnemonic rule, with other auxiliaries such as dermoscopy, distal dermoscopy and biopsy.

This type of melanoma includes four different types, SSM, NM, LMM, and ALM.

CM is caused mainly by direct UV exposure to the sun, tanning beds and other DNA mutations such as BRAF and NRAS.

Mucosal melanoma (MM) is more aggressive than CM, which results from melanocytes proliferation of mucosal membranes mainly in respiratory, gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts.

Unlike CM, which is widespread in males, MM is more frequently encountered in females with a female to male ratio of 1.85- 1.00.

This type of melanoma is poorly diagnosed at early stages of the disease because of its location in unexposed body sites and the absence of early symptoms.

One of the risk factors implicated in sinonasal MM is formaldehyde exposure while smoking can be involved in oral MM.

C-kit is considered the most common mutation associated with MM.

Melanoma staging is determined based on tumor thickness, nodal involvement degree and tumor metastases, and it divided into five progressive stages.

The treatment varies according to patient’s status, which could be surgical removal, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and mono-therapy.

Twenty-four melanoma cell lines, 13 CM, 8 MM, and 3 acral obtained from Palestinian patients with melanoma were used in this study.

These cell lines were grown and maintained following established procedures in the tissue culture laboratory.

DNA was extracted by the salting out method and used for subsequent amplification and sequencing.

These procedures were used to detect mutations in the following oncogenes: BRAF exon 15, NRAS Q16 exon 3, and CKIT exons 11, 13, and 17.

The sequencing results detected mutations in BRAF 57.1%, NRAS 14.2%, KIT 29%, where KIT 11, 14.2%, KIT 13 14.2% and no mutations were detected in KIT 17.

Main Subjects

Pharmacy, Health & Medical Sciences

No. of Pages

66

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-780677