The prognostic importance of c-myc oncogene expression in head and neck melanoma

Melanomas of the head and neck have a poorer prognosis than melanomas arising at other cutaneous sites. To study the biology of this disease, the expression of the c-myc oncogene was studied in tumors from 97 patients with head and neck melanoma using the technique of flow cytometry. Survival analysis revealed that stratification of patients according to oncogene expression provided a prognostic marker with shorter overall survival in tumors with high nuclear c-myc oncoprotein positivity (log-rank test, chi2 = 8.77, p < 0.005). Multifactorial analysis using Cox's proportional hazards model revealed nuclear c-myc oncoprotein to be an independent prognostic marker (log-rank test, chi2 = 8.82, p = 0.005). These results support the authors' previous studies of the prognostic value of c-myc expression in melanoma and suggest that estimation of c-myc oncoprotein may be of clinical importance in identifying high-risk patients.