IHC Dual Staining: a new depth measurement for melanoma diagnosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A pilot study into a novel use of immunohistochemical dual staining method combined with a newly proposed depth measurement to help differentiate between benign and malignant compound melanocytic lesions.
IRAS ID
224389
Contact name
Phuoc-Tan Diep
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 8 days
Research summary
Incidences worldwide of the skin cancer melanoma is steadily increasing. Treatment is by wide local excision where the mole is cut out of the skin. It may also be necessary to remove the sentinel lymph nodes. These are useful in the body as filters for harmful substances. They are also the first target a cancer may start spreading to therefore sometimes it is necessary to remove them. Removal may compromise the patient’s immune system so it is important to reach an accurate diagnosis before carrying out this step. There are many characteristic features shared between benign and malignant lesions and as such when looking at these specimens microscopically there is a lot of inter and intra-observer variability i.e. one person may look at a specimen and say it’s benign whereas the next person will say it’s malignant. What is needed here is a dedicated test to ensure this variability in diagnoses is eradicated. The current gold method is by a common stain known as haematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E). This stain enables the cancer and other tissue structures to be visible under the microscope. As well as this the Breslow’s depth is measured. It is important that we know how far down the cancer has spread. The deeper the measurement the worse it is for the patient and the more likely it is that the cancer could prove to be fatal. One such test that could meet the criteria needed involves the antibodies or immunomarkers HMB45, a cancer maturation marker and Ki:67, a cancer proliferation (spreading) marker. It is thought by detecting both in the melanocyte (the cancerous cell in melanoma) and measuring this depth that it will be much easier to determine if a lesion is an outright benign or malignant lesion and reduce all of the observer variability.
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
17/NI/0068
Date of REC Opinion
27 Mar 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion