Ebook Ecm: Predictive Molecular Pathology In Solid Tumors

Precision medicine has transformed the clinical management of patients with solid tumors. In this context, numerous clinically relevant predictive biomarkers have been implemented in clinical practice to guide the management of solid tumors based on molecular profiling of tumor cells. The evolving landscape of molecular biomarkers paved the way for the widespread adoption of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms in the clinical management of patients with solid tumors. Traditional techniques such as immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) have been progressively integrated with molecular systems based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and NGS platforms in molecular profiling of diagnostic specimens. As a result, the number of clinically approved biomarkers has rapidly increased. Furthermore, the clinical use of comprehensive NGS panels has revealed a wide range of promising biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic decision-making of solid tumors. A major challenge is the lack of standardized pre-analytical procedures, which affects the success rate of interpretable molecular results when applying molecular techniques. Liquid biopsy has emerged as an integrative biological matrix that supports molecular testing when 'gold standard' tissue specimens are insufficient for molecular analysis. Given these critical issues, integrating diagnostic approaches based on harmonized pre-analytical, analytical, and data reporting strategies should be encouraged for stratifying patients who could benefit from targeted therapies.