HMB-45 (HMB-45)

This antibody gives a qualitative assessment of malignant melanoma, which can be extremely difficult to diagnose. Metastatic amelanotic melanoma can often be confused with a variety of poorly differentiated carcinomas, large cell lymphomas, and sarcomas. It is also difficult to differentiate melanoma from spindle cell carcinomas and various types of mesenchymal neoplasms. Melanoma antibody stains fetal and neonatal melanocytes, junctional and blue nevus cells, and malignant melanocytes. Typically, a keratin negative, vimentin rich neoplasm, that immunoreacts with antibody to S-100 protein and this melanoma antibody is, with rare exception, a melanoma.