Title:Cancer Targeted Therapy Strategy: The Pathologist’s Perspectives
Volume: 18
Issue: 5
Author(s): Lara Alessandrini, Tiziana Perin, Shahin Kadare, Lino del Pup, Lorenzo Memeo, Agostino Steffan, Lorenzo Colarossi, Massimiliano Berretta, Paolo De Paoli and Vincenzo Canzonieri*
Affiliation:
- Divisions of Pathology, CRO IRCCS National Cancer Institute, Aviano (PN),Italy
Keywords:
Target therapy, biomarker, pathologist's perspective, Immunohistochemistry, FFPE tissue, molecular analyses,
traditional sequencing, next-generation sequencing.
Abstract: The effectiveness of new personalized treatment procedures in oncology is based on the
fact that certain tumors exhibit specific molecular features.
More in detail, neoplastic tissues of patients should display a specific biomarker, most often a specific
genetic alteration and/or under/overexpression of a definite protein, that could be the target of
its respective drug. Immunohistochemical and molecular analyses, which usually include examination
of nucleic acids from either tissues or fluids, are common tests to define the status of a tumor.
This review focuses on the pathologist’s role in carefully controlling pre- analytic procedures and
standard operating procedures that are a crucial prerequisite to reach reliable and reproducible results.
Six paradigmatic applications of targeted therapy, for which pathological diagnosis plays a
fundamental role, are summarized. Traditional and next-generation sequencing are also addressed
from the pathologist's perspective as well as the importance pathologists have in this shift to more
accurate definition of disease risk and prognostication of therapy response in the personalized medicine
era.
