Value of Merkel cell polyomavirus DNA detection in routine pathology.

摘要

With great interest, we studied the recently published article from Duncavage et al "Merkel Cell Polyomavirus-A Specific Marker for Merkel Cell Carcinoma in Histologically Similar Tumors". We agree that molecular pathologic investigation for Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) of tumors, which are histologically similar to Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a very interesting and important issue. It is beyond debate that analysis of MCPyV prevalence in other skin conditions than MCC is necessary to get insight in the relevance of MCPyV infection. Our group is intensively working in this field, and we discuss the value of MCPyV detection as a diagnostic tool in routine histopathology in the light of the latest literature.