Detection of melanoma cells in the peripheral blood is a promising method in monitoring of haematogenic tumor cell dissemination and thus in early detection of metastases. The opinion on a clinical relevance of the method is not uniform. Authors describe multimarker real-time PCR they successfully established for this purpose. Five melanoma cells markers were quantitatively analyzed from the peripheral blood: Melan-A/MART-1, gp 100, MAGE-3, MIA and tyrosinase. During prospective study 65 patients after high risk skin melanoma excision were screened. Staging and blood sample analyses for circulating cells were performed every three months during 15 months period. In 18 patients progression was noted during the study. All of them showed statistically significant elevation of tumor markers 0 to 9 months from disease progression. MAGE-3 was the most sensitive marker. In patients with disease progression three markers were positive in 39%, one marker in 33% and two markers in 28%. Quantitative detection of melanoma markers was identified as a reliable and useful method of early haematogenic dissemination in melanoma patients. It might be ušed as an important prognostic method and may play role in the screening of patients at risk and monitoring of the therapeutic effect in the future.

        Key words: malignant melanoma - tumor markers - real-time RT-PCR