“…The use of YAC probes for FISH analy sis on fresh or archival tum or samples has am ply proven its u sefu ln ess in the detection of the translocation an d the lo calizatio n of the X p ll.2 breakpoints, even w h e n com plex rearrangem ents are present [18,31], In addition, the isola tio n and characterization of the SYT and SSX genes has o p en ed u p the possibility of employing a reverse tra n scrip tio n polym erase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay as a m eans to detect SYT-SSX fusion transcripts and, therefore, to retrieve inform ation from tumors not am enable to cytoge n e tic analysis, By using th e RT-PCR approach, SYT-SSX transcripts have been detected in 70 synovial sarcomas-45 w ith SYT-SSX1 transcripts an d 25 w ith SYT-SSX2 tran scrip ts [22,23,32,33], Both techniques, FISH an d RT-PCR, have also been used to evaluate a possible correlation betw een X p ll.2 breakpoint localization and histological tu m o r (sub) type. Interestingly we found th a t all b ip h asic synovial sarcom as exhibited a break in the OATLl [SSXÍ] region, w hereas m ost tum ors diagnosed as m onophasic w e re found to carry a break in the OATL2 (SSX2) region [18,34]. These latter findings have been corroborated by som e but n o t all reports from other investigators and, as such, m ust await further validation [32,33,35].…”