News & Publications
The latest news and publications about Merkel cell carcinoma and merkelcell.org.
Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare skin cancer associated with Merkel cell polyomavirus in most cases. Prior studies associating Merkel cell carcinoma viral status with prognosis have inconsistent findings. Moshiri et al. used multimodal virus detection to determine that the 81% of patients with virus-...
Read more →Tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells are associated with improved survival of patients with Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), an aggressive skin cancer causally linked to Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV). However, CD8+ T-cell infiltration is robust in only 4% to 18% of MCC tumors. We characterized the T-cell ...
Read more →Purpose: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare and often aggressive skin cancer. Typically, surgery is the primary treatment. Postoperative radiation therapy (PORT) is often recommended to improve local control. It is unclear whether PORT is indicated in patients with favorable Stage IA head and nec...
Read more →Background: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is an aggressive skin cancer with a recurrence rate of >40%. Of the 2000 MCC cases per year in the United States, most are caused by the Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV). Antibodies to MCPyV oncoprotein (T-antigens) have been correlated with MCC tumor burde...
Read more →Previous studies have reached conflicting conclusions regarding the proportion of Merkel cell carcinomas (MCCs) that contain the Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) and the clinical significance of tumor viral status. To address these controversies, we detected MCPyV large T antigen using immunohistoch...
Read more →The first consensus Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) staging system was published in 2010. This 2016 study updates several aspects of how MCC is currently staged. Methods: A total of 9387 MCC cases from the National Cancer Data Base Participant User File with follow-up and staging data (1998–2012) were...
Read more →Background: Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare, aggressive skin cancer with poor prognosis in patients with advanced disease. Current standard care uses various cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens, but responses are seldom durable. Tumour oncogenesis is linked to Merkel cell polyomavirus integration and ul...
Read more →The use of adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) to the primary site in Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is not uncommon. However, the need for adjuvant RT to the primary site in patients at low risk for local recurrence is questionable. Objectives: To examine the occurrence of true local, satellite, in-transi...
Read more →Merkel cell carcinoma represents a rare group of cutaneous malignancies, which typically develop in the sun-damaged skin of elderly individuals and often in immunosuppressed patients. Locally advanced and metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma have a grave prognosis, and until recently, the European inter...
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