Combining Diagnostic Imaging and Pathology for Improving Diagnosis and Prognosis of Cancer

Abstract

In the era of personalized medicine, the management of oncological patients requires a translational and multidisciplinary approach. During early phases of cancer development, biochemical alterations of cell metabolism occur much before the formation of detectable tumour masses. Current molecular imaging techniques, targeted to the study of molecular kinetics, employ molecular tracers capable of detecting cancer lesions with both high sensitivity and specificity while also providing essential information for both prognosis and therapy. On the contrary, complementary and crucial information is provided by histopathological examination and ancillary techniques such as immunohistochemistry. Thus, the successful collaboration between diagnostic imaging and anatomic pathology can represent a fundamental step in the “tortuous” but decisive path towards personalized medicine.

18F–Choline PET/CT Identifies High-Grade Prostate Cancer Lesions Expressing Bone Biomarkers

“…Recent studies emphasized the needed for innovative multidisciplinary approaches to address the new challenges of cancer medicine [15,16,17]. In particular, great relevance has been given to the collaboration between imaging diagnostics and anatomic pathology departments [17,18,19,20,21]. The comparison and sharing of data derived by imaging procedures and histopathological analysis can shed new light on cancer mechanisms, thus providing useful information for the development and/or revaluation of diagnostic analyses.…”

Cold Formalin Fixation Guarantees DNA Integrity in Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded Tissues: Premises for a Better Quality of Diagnostic and Experimental Pathology With a Specific Impact on Breast Cancer

“…For instance, depending on the site of origin and on the histologic type of a tumoral lesion genetic alterations such as mutations, translocations and gene expression signatures are currently being assayed in clinical practice [reviewed in (11)]. As pointed out by Schillaci et al the primary goal of radiological and pathological evaluation is to increase the quality of life of oncological patients, both through the reduction and the invasiveness of the methods as well as by the accuracy of molecular analyses (12). Feasibility, robustness and reproducibility of molecular assays are therefore key in this respect and these features are strictly dependent on the integrity of DNA/RNA, which derives from a proper management of tissue during the preanalytical phase, including formalin fixation.…”

Molecular Imaging and the PD-L1 Pathway: From Bench to Clinic

“…Because cell types cannot be determined using PET, PD-L1 IHC and PD-L1 PET will likely become better aligned in IHC assays that assess PD-L1 expression on tumor and immune cells using the combined positive score algorithm ( 75 , 76 ). With this in mind, we are optimistic that use of these techniques side by side will guide clinical decision-making in the future ( 76 ).…”