Department of Dermatology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy Clinical Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy Department of Human Pathology and Oncology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Br J Dermatol. 2012 Sep 26. doi: 10.1111/bjd.12056.
Oncological research has been focused on evaluating estrogen receptors (ERs) in estrogen-related tumors and understanding the potential role of ERs in the pathophysiology of cancer. Objectives: To investigate the significance of estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) in melanoma.
We prospectively evaluated ERβ expression in malignant melanoma (MM) tissue and adjacent healthy skin by quantitative immunohistochemistry at the Department of Dermatology of the University of Florence from 1998 to 2010.
ERβ was detected with varying staining intensity in the 66 malignant melanocytic lesions. After adjusting for age and gender, we found that ERβ expression was significantly lower in melanoma tissue compared with adjacent healthy skin (P < 0.0001). We also found significantly lower ERβ levels in thick melanoma tissue compared with thin melanoma tissue. In addition, there was a positive association between Breslow thickness and the difference of ERβ expression between healthy tissue and melanoma tissue (P = 0.0004). Consistent with gender differences in melanoma survival, men showed significantly lower levels of ERβ than women in both melanoma and healthy tissues (P = 0.05 and 0.02, respectively).
ERβ expression is inversely associated with Breslow thickness and also significantly influenced by gender in MM.
Copyright © 2012 British Association of Dermatologists.
PMID: 23013061 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] Source: National Library of Medicine.
