Published in:
Open Access
01-12-2022 | Melanoma | Review
Clinical features, molecular pathology, and immune microenvironmental characteristics of acral melanoma
Authors:
Jianping Gui, Zhen Guo, Di Wu
Published in:
Journal of Translational Medicine
|
Issue 1/2022
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Abstract
Acral melanoma (AM) has unique biology as an aggressive subtype of melanoma. It is a common subtype of melanoma in races with darker skin tones usually diagnosed at a later stage, thereby presenting a worse prognosis compared to cutaneous melanoma. The pathogenesis of acral melanoma differs from cutaneous melanoma, and trauma promotes its development. Compared to cutaneous melanomas, acral melanomas have a significantly lighter mutational burden with more copy number variants. Most acral melanomas are classified as triple wild-type. In contrast to cutaneous melanomas, acral melanomas have a suppressive immune microenvironment. Herein, we reviewed the clinical features, genetic variants, and immune microenvironmental characteristics of limbic melanomas to summarise their unique features.