Revising Skin Cancers by Means of Epigenetic Markers

Skin neoplasms represent a group of cutaneous disorders comprising primarily basal cell carcinoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, malignant melanoma and cutaneous lymphoma. Until the last few years, not all skin cancers subtypes have been studied in an epigenetic milieu. Among skin cancer subtypes, melanoma is the most discussed from the epigenetic point of view due to its aggressiveness and its proven resistance to radiotherapy procedures. Epigenetic deregulations comprise reversible modifications of the nuclear material, for instance aberrant methylation of DNA, posttranslational modifications of histones and recently considered, microRNAs profiles. A relevant number of patents and clinical trials regarding the use of epigenetic drugs alone or in combination with classical procedures have been developed especially for melanoma treatment. Due to their particular aggressive character, cutaneous lymphomas or even the rare Merkel cell carcinoma has been started to be intensively investigated upon epigenetic context, leading also to develop new therapy options and novel patents for their treatment.