title: The enigmatic role of nucleophosmin in malignant melanoma: does it have an effect?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Melanoma is quite a heterogeneous group of diseases of the skin. Prognostic markers of tumor behavior are important to precisely assign individual patients for appropriate treatment protocols.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of our first study was to investigate nucleophosmin expression in melanoma patients and to determine its relationship with the tumor characteristics and patient prognosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed the immunohistochemical expression of nucleophosmin in 55 melanoma patients. The immunostaining pattern was classified into two groups: Diffuse nuclear and nucleolar relocalization. We also investigated the relationship between the expression of nucleophosmin and the clinicopathological parameters such as Clark level, tumor thickness, stage, histological type, location, and survey.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In all cases the neoplastic cells were strongly positive for nucleophosmin (14 cases diffuse nuclear, 41 cases nucleolar relocalization). No correlation was demonstrated between the expression pattern of nucleophosmin and the clinicopathological parameters and survey.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The implications of our results, nevertheless, are that the immunohistochemical detection of nucleophosmin is not a valuable tool for predicting the outcome of patients with melanoma or identifying subgroups of patients who may be at a higher risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Izmir Training and Research Hospital, Yesilyurt/Izmir, Turkey. calliaylin@gmail.com
authors.forename: Aylin Orgen
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Calli
authors.forename: Aysegül
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sari
authors.forename: Gözde
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Evcim
authors.forename: Aysegül
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Altinboga
authors.forename: Canan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sadullahoglu
authors.forename: Murat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ermete
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D008853:Microscopy; D008875:Middle Aged; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D000090243:Nucleophosmin; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C000716967:NPM1 protein, human; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D000090243:Nucleophosmin