Melanoma is the most aggressive and serious type of skin cancer. Known for being highly malignant and metastatic, melanoma typically has low survival rates. Prognosis can be improved with an early diagnosis and a good monitoring of the disease. However, current melanoma biomarkers display severe limitations, making them inadequate for early detection of the malignancy. Therefore, it is of urgent matter for us to characterize and establish novel biomarkers with a direct application to daily clinics in order to accurately detect early american joint committee on cancer (AJCC) stages in melanoma patients, efficiently monitor the disease progression, and reliably predict the response to therapies, survival, and likely future recurrence. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a promising biomarker and regulator of tumor progression for many cancers. They are secreted into the bloodstream inside exosomes by a wide range of malignant cells and several of them have actually been validated as promising circulating molecular signatures of other cancer types, but not melanoma. However, in recent years there has been much research into lncRNA melanoma biomarkers, and many of them have been characterized as potentially clinically relevant.
Part of the book: Human Skin Cancers