ECP 2026: Epidermal Biomarker Resolves Tricky Skin Lesions

Study investigates the diagnostic utility of epidermal CD271 IHC expression in challenging melanocytic lesions

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Epidermal CD271 expression outperformed Ki67 and PRAME for diagnosing challenging melanocytic lesions, according to a study presented at ECP 2026.
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The study involved 156 challenging melanocytic lesions, with CD271 quantified manually and Ki-67 and PRAME analyzed using AI-driven image analysis.
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In benign nevi, CD271 was expressed in almost all basal keratinocytes, while this pattern was lost in melanomas, indicating significant differences.
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CD271 demonstrated a ROC curve of 0.93, outperforming PRAME at 0.84 and Ki-67 at 0.83 in diagnostic performance.
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The findings suggest that the epidermal niche may provide additional diagnostic information for assessing melanocytic lesions.

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