Department of Plastic and Breast Surgery, Simon Naseri

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a malignant tumour of the skin caused by the merkel cell polyomavirus (80%) or UV radiation (20%). Despite treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the 3-year mortality rate of MCC is 33%. However, MCC is an immunogenic tumour and recent clinical trials with immunotherapy (PD-L1 inhibitors) show promising results.

In these studies, we aim to characterise essential factors of inflammation (cd66b neutrophils, ulceration, E-cadherin) and viral expression (merkel cell polyomavirus) involved in tumour PD-L1 expression in MCC. This may contribute to the biological understanding of inflammatory drivers originating from wound and viral recruited immune cells and provide important knowledge of how to modulate the local microenvironment to benefit the patients.