Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 17, 2026

A 3D Organotypic Melanoma Spheroid Skin Model
Published on: May 18, 2018
The dynamics of death in melanoma
1VA and Duke University Medical Centers, Durham, NC, USA.
Background:
Melanoma has been recently characterized as an over-diagnosed tumor, and some have suggested that the 'epidemic' in melanoma is spurious. Nevertheless, a fraction of melanoma patients continue to die of this tumor. For any tumor, the hazard function provides information about the timing and intensity of fatalities, and to examine the details of fatality in melanoma, herein the hazard functions for melanoma are derived and examined.
Methods:
Data for this study came from the SEER data base, from AJCC data and from previously published studies of melanoma, and the hazard function was derived using the sum of two gamma functions and a nonlinear least-squares fitting algorithm.
Results:
The derived hazard functions for melanoma peak at 1-3 years, a result that implies a form of rapidly evolving and fatal melanoma that is not consistently identified by routine prognostic factors. Yet in recent years the hazard function for all melanomas has declined suggesting that much of the epidemic in melanoma is due to non-fatal tumors.
Conclusion:
Analyses of the hazard functions in a large number of melanoma patients has uncovered details about the dynamics of death that otherwise are not apparent.
Related Concept Videos
Skin Cancer
Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC): BCC is the most common type of skin cancer, accounting for about 80% of cases. It typically develops in...
Overview of Cell Death
Cell death was observed in the early 19th century, but there was no experimental evidence to prove it. In 1842, Carl Vogt first discovered cell death in a metamorphic toad; however, it was not termed ‘cell death.’ Scientists discovered different cell death pathways only in the 20th century...
Adaptive Mechanisms in Cancer Cells
Some of the advantages that cancer cells have on normal cells include - enhanced ability to divide without terminally differentiating, induce new blood vessel formation,...
The Tumor Microenvironment
Cancer Survival Analysis
Mitochondrial Membranes

