Award to CCBIO PhD candidate Emilia Hugdahl

Dermatology award

Galderma awards a prize for best article written by a young dermatologist each year at the annual meeting of the Norwegian Society for Dermatology and Venereology (NFDV). The award is called the YDF Prize (Young Dermatologists Forum). The NFDF research committee determines the prize winner.

Novel prognostic marker in primary melanoma

The prize is awarded for the article: "BRAF-V600E expression primary nodular melanoma is associated with aggressive tumor features and reduced survival" published in the British Journal of Cancer 2016.

Authors are Emilia Hugdahl, May Britt Kalvenes, Hanne Eknes Puntervoll, Rita Grude Ladstein and Lars A. Akslen.

Around 50% of primary melanomas harbour BRAF mutations, but their prognostic impact has not been clear. Recently, a BRAF-V600E mutation-specific antibody has become available for immunohistochemistry. In her work, Hugdahl and her team investigated for the first time the prognostic impact of BRAF-V600E protein expression in primary melanoma.

In a patient series of 248 nodular melanomas, BRAF-V600E and total BRAF expression were assessed by immunohistochemistry using tissue microarray sections of paraffin-embedded archival tissue. Mutation status was assessed by real-time PCR in cases with sufficient tumour tissue (n=191).

Positive BRAF-V600E expression was present in 86 (35%) of the cases, and was significantly associated with increased tumour thickness, presence of tumour ulceration and reduced survival. Further, BRAF-V600E expression was an independent prognostic factor by multivariate analysis, whereas BRAF mutation status was not significant. There was 88% concordance between BRAF-V600E expression and mutation status.

The findings indicate that BRAF-V600E expression is a novel prognostic marker in primary melanoma.

Motivating

Emilia considers the award as a recognition of her work and motivates her for further research.

We congratulate!