Predicyive molecular pathology-The Key to modern tumor therapy

摘要

The novel approach of individualized oncological therapy has led to an increasingly important task of clinical pathology in verifying the applicability of so-called targeted drugs. This applies to therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of solid (e.g. breast and colon carcinomas) and hemato-Iymphoid tumors as well as for the selection of specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKls, small molecules) for the therapy of lung carcinomas, malignant melanomas or gastrointestinal stroma tumours. The translational adaptation of immunologi-cal and molecular biological methods to the peculiarities of tissue-based diagnosis requires a systematic immunophenotyping and molecular genotyping of tumor tissue samples during routine diagnosis. This multimodal approach has become a diagnostic standard for several tumor entities and will further expand in the coming years. This leads to the fascinating possibility of expanding the diagnostic spectrum towards detection of predictive biomarkers by eligibility tests in tissue samples. This is necessary for supplying the oncologist with therapy-relevant data regarding the response to anti-proliferative substances, the possibility of resistance development or of metastatic potential etc. The current contribution describes the most relevant examples.