Clinical Trial: Family Study of Melanoma in Italy

Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Observational

Official Title: Family Study of Melanoma in Italy

Brief Summary:

During the course of a case-control study of melanoma conducted at the Bufalini Hospital, Cesena, Italy in the years 1994-1996, 20 families with 2 or 3 melanoma cases were identified and studied. The area where the study was conducted showed the steepest increase in melanoma incidence in Mediterranean populations between the years 1987 and 1997.

Clinical characteristics of melanoma in the families studied were similar to those typically described in fair-skinned populations, but no relevant mutations in the coding regions of known candidate genes from melanoma have been found. Lack of findings could be due to the modest number of families and the small number of affected CMM cases examined. We cannot exclude the possibility of alterations in introns, splicing sites or promoter regions. Also epigenetic factors could affect the expression of the gene products we studied. Alternatively, germline alterations of a gene(s) other than the candidate genes we analyzed may play an important role in melanoma predisposition in this population. A large number of families is needed to test these hypotheses.

These additional families could provide an important contribution to the understanding o melanoma development. In fact, this population does not generally have the host characteristics that are usually associated with higher risk for melanoma (e.g., light skin color, red hair, blue eyes, multiple freckles, tendency to sunburn, etc.) but do have a relative high frequency of dysplastic nevi and melanoma.

The main objective of this study is to recruit more families at the Bufalini Hospital, Cesena, Italy in order to reach a larger sample size. Recently, 16 potential melanoma-prone families have been identified through patient's or physicians' referrals by the Dermatologists at the Bufali

Detailed Summary:

To date 557 subjects, including cases of melanoma and unaffected relatives, have been recruited in the family study of melanoma at the Bufalini Hospital, Cesena, Italy, University ofl'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy, and the Istituto Valenciano de Oncologia, Valencia, Spain. Clinical characteristics of melanoma in the families studied were similar to those typically described in fair-skinned populations.

In the original study from the Bufalini Hospital, only 7% of the families analyzed have been shown to carry mutation in the CDKN2A gene, known candidate gene for melanoma, and no other mutation in additional susceptibility genes have been identified. The possibility of alterations in introns, splicing sites, or promoter regions cannot be excluded. Also, epigenetic factors could affect the expression of the gene products we studied. Alternatively, germline alterations of a gene(s) other than the candidate genes may play an important role in melanoma predisposition in this population. We began genome-wide scanning of the first 47 families. There was no evidence for linkage to either chromosome 9 or chromosome 1, previously shown to be susceptibility loci for melanoma. We extended the samples size also including melanoma-prone families from other Italian investigators. We have performed fine mapping of the loci that appeared interesting in the first linkage analysis. We did not confirm the previous association with the disease and published a manuscript to report the null results. Some of these families were also analyzed together with other families worldwide in linkage and genome-wide association studies with the goal of identifying loci potentially important for melanoma etiology. Moreover, some individuals from this study are being analyzed for presence of variants in susceptibility genes in pigmentation, DNA repair, and other pathways together with the melanoma samples from the
Sponsor: National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Current Primary Outcome: Defining the clinical spectrum and natural history of familial melanoma and susceptibility states over multiple generations [ Time Frame: Ongoing ]

Original Primary Outcome:

Current Secondary Outcome:

Original Secondary Outcome:

Information By: National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (CC)

Dates:
Date Received: June 19, 2006
Date Started: November 3, 2001
Date Completion:
Last Updated: April 21, 2017
Last Verified: June 3, 2016