Pathologic Assessment of Melanoma Sentinel Nodes: A Role for Molecular Analysis Using Quantitative Real-Time Reverse Transcription-PCR for MART-1 and Tyrosinase Messenger RNA

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Abstract
Purpose: Molecular analysis of melanoma sentinel nodes (SN) is sensitive, but poorly specific because metastases cannot be distinguished from benign nevus inclusions (BNI). We investigated whether quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) detection of MART-1 and tyrosinase mRNAs could improve this specificity and contribute to SN assessment.