Study Finds Link Between Melanoma and Parkinson’s Disease

Source: Melanoma News Today, February 2016

Recent findings indicate there may be a link between Parkinson’s disease and melanoma, with family history and common genetic susceptibility as possible causes. The review is published in the journal Dermatologic Surgery and is titled “A Review of the Association Between Parkinson Disease and Malignant Melanoma.”

Since the 1970s and following the start of levodopa (L-DOPA) treatment for patients with Parkinson’s disease, neurology and oncology scientific literature have raised suspicions about a possible link between melanoma and Parkinson’s. This is because a number of case reports suggest that levodopa has a causal relationship with malignant melanoma due to its shared dopamine biochemical pathway.

“Given that [levodopa] is a substrate in melanin synthesis, there existed a concern that this therapy [for Parkinson’s disease] might cause melanoma,” researchers wrote in their review.

To explore published evidence on possible casual links that can explain the associations between Parkinson’s and melanoma, Max Disse from the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis and colleagues conducted a literature search of PubMed and Google Scholar using the terms “Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson’s, melanoma, melanoma + Parkinson’s disease, alpha-synuclein and melanoma,” and other combinations of these same words.