Molecular Genomic Changes in Carcinoma and their Clinical Applications in Diagnostic Pathology - Focus on Development of FISH Probes for Breast and Melanoma.

As our understanding of genomic DNA changes underlying carcinoma development progresses, we are able to start touse these changes as useful markers of disease stage, prognosis and response to targeted therapies. Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridisation (FISH) technology makes use of these genomic abnormalities and is routinely used in constitutional and haematological diagnostics, and is becoming increasingly used in solid tumour diagnostics. The technology lends itself to applications in Pathology as it works efficiently on Formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue and is the only technology allowing detection of multiple genomic abnormalities within the tissue context of the tumour. This talk will focus on the use, and future prospects for multitarget FISH technology in therapy selection for breast cancer, and discuss the future use of FISH technology in other carcinomas for example Melanoma, Bladder cancer and Barrett’s Esophageal Cancer.