Simultaneous determination of two serum tumor markers in assessing malignant melanoma patients

Background The incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma (MM) continues to raise despite extensive prevention programs. If localized disease can be cured, the prognosis of metastatic melanoma is grim. Therefore, reliable methods to detect patients at risk for disease progression are sought. Field of tumor markers has captured attention because it allows the first steps toward personalized medicine. A positive tumor marker has a limited ability to correctly detect all sick people, so it was proposed to simultaneously measure several markers in order to improve their performance [1,2]. S100 and Melanoma Inhibitory Activity (MIA) are most frequently used for monitoring MM patients. Both proteins have a high specificity and their expression correlates with body tumor burden [3].