Figure 4.

Representative immunohistochemistry of SCF or c-Kit on the same area of interest around glands in the normal skin (A, E), compound nevi (B, F), dysplastic nevi (C, G), and melanomas (D, H) tissue sections. The micrographs show a significative gradual increased SCF and c-Kit expression in malignant melanoma lesions compared to premalignant ones and normal skin (A–H). The morphometric analysis performed on the same region of interest for both markers confirmed an increased SCF⁺/c-Kit⁺ mast cell infiltrate around glands in melanoma compared to normal skin, compound nevi, and dysplastic nevi, both as percentages of immunolabeling positivity and as number of positive cells (I, J). Linear regression analysis shows the positive relationships between (K) SCF and c-Kit [(K) y=1.023+0.006766; R² = 0.8848; p ≤ 0.0001]. Data are reported as means ± SD, and Tukey post-test was used to compare all groups after one-way ANOVA. Statistical significance: ns, not significative; *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001; ****p ≤ 0.0001. Scale bar: 200 μm.