Abbasi Ahmed Nadeem, Zahid Sumaiya
Department of Radiation Oncology, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi.
J Pak Med Assoc. 2012 Mar;62(3):262-8.
Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), is a rare, highly malignant skin tumour, with a poor prognosis. Though the aetiology of MCC is not known, but there are several features that it shares with melanoma. These include the natural history, clinical features and behaviour, e.g. an early spread to nodal sites, high local recurrence rate and early metastasis. Incidence of MCC is seen to be increased in immunosuppressed transplant patients, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and in B cell malignancies, with a strong male predominance. Despite the ongoing research and advancement, MCC yet poses a challenge to the clinicians because of its rarity. The purpose of this paper is to review the most salient and clinically relevant updates of MCC since its first publication in July 2007 in JPMA. In order to expedite an improved understanding of the new diagnostic modalities, treatment and preventive measures, along with the new staging system established in 2009 after an extensive literature review, and an analysis of over 5,000 patients using the National Cancer Database has all been included in our article.
默克尔细胞癌（MCC）是一种罕见的、高度恶性的皮肤肿瘤，预后较差。尽管MCC的病因尚不清楚，但它与黑色素瘤有一些共同特征。这些包括自然病史、临床特征和行为，例如早期扩散至淋巴结部位、高局部复发率和早期转移。MCC的发病率在免疫抑制的移植患者、类风湿性关节炎患者和B细胞恶性肿瘤患者中有所增加，男性占主导。尽管一直在进行研究和取得进展，但由于MCC的罕见性，它仍然给临床医生带来挑战。本文的目的是回顾自2007年7月在《巴基斯坦医学协会杂志》（JPMA）首次发表以来MCC最显著和临床相关的进展。为了加快对新诊断方法、治疗和预防措施的理解，同时还包括在广泛文献综述后于2009年建立的新分期系统，以及使用国家癌症数据库对5000多名患者的分析，所有这些都包含在我们的文章中。
