Melanoma cell plasticity poses diagnostic challenges: a case series

Phenotype switching is an emerging concept in melanoma research and deals with the cancer cell plasticity. In this paper, we present five cases of patients with metastatic malignant melanoma where the tumor underwent dramatic morphological and immunohistochemical changes thereby mimicking other types of malignancies. The diagnosis of melanoma in all these cases was based on the mutational profile of the tumor assessed by next-generation sequencing compared to the primary lesion or local regional lymph nodes. These cases highlight the importance of thorough diagnostic measures in patients with metastatic melanoma who show progressive disease and where basic pathological assessment shows a diagnostic discrepancy.