“…In a study that screened for multiple circulating melanoma antigen markers, p97, MUC18, and Melan A, but not tyrosinase, were found to be independently associated with prognosis [ 178 ]. Moreover, other investigators have found in their databases that tyrosinase RT-PCR [ 180 , 189 , 190 , 193 ] or multimarker RT-PCR (tyrosinase, MAGE-3, MUC-18, p97) [ 179 ] constituted a signifi cant, independent prognostic marker signifying increased risk of relapse and was a signifi cant adverse prognostic factor for disease-free (but not overall) survival in another analysis [ 191 ] and an independent predictor of disease-free and overall survival in a German database [ 194 ]. Thus, detection of tyrosinase transcripts in the circulation by RT-PCR holds promise as a future standard marker for melanoma progression.…”