“…It is possible, however, that primary tumour and paired metastatic lesions might be different at the molecular marker expression or gene status levels and that these differences may affect the clinical significance of a predictive test. In this contest, it is noteworthy that the few previously published studies on this issue focused almost exclusively on the rather unreliable evaluation of EGFR expression by IHC (McKay et al, 2002;Ooi et al, 2004;Scartozzi et al, 2004;Bralet et al, 2005;Italiano et al, 2005;Bibeau et al, 2006;Cappuzzo et al, 2007). The aim of this study is to analyse molecular alterations predictive for anti-EGFR therapies response, such as EGFR gene status, K-Ras and BRAF mutations, and PTEN protein expression, in primary tumour and synchronous or metachronous metastasis.…”