Implications of Molecular Advances for Diagnostic Pediatric Oncological Pathology

ABSTRACT

An increasing number of pediatric malignant soft tissue tumors are associated with diagnostic and characteristic molecular genetic alterations, which may be detectable routinely on histological samples using established laboratory techniques such as PCR and FISH. This change in approach to laboratory diagnosis has led to changes in methods of clinical investigation, with increasing use of small image guided needle biopsies, which require modification of laboratory handling to optimize use of such limited tissue samples. Future developments in technological aspects of molecular investigation, such a expression profiling and proteomic approaches are likely to lead to even greater reliance of tissue samples, not only for provision of diagnosis, but for determination of prognostic and therapeutic information.

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