The role of the pathologist in the design and conducting of biomarker-driven clinical trials in cancer: position paper of the European Society of Pathology.

Clinical trials in oncology are important tools to identify and establish new effective drugs for cancer treatment. Since the development of the concept of precision oncology, a huge number of multi-centric biomarker-driven clinical trials have been performed and promoted by either academic institutions or pharmaceutical companies. In this scenario, the role of pathologists is essential in multiple aspects, with new challenges that should be addressed.

Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast and invasive breast carcinoma of no special type: a comparison of claudin proteins' expression and its impact on survival.

Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast is characterized by clusters of cells presenting with inverted polarity. Although the apico-basal polarity is a fundamental property of the epithelium, the biological alterations leading to the inside-out pattern observed in invasive micropapillary carcinoma (IMPC) remain mostly unknown. The regulation of tight junctions in polarity formation and maintenance is acknowledged.

Digital Whole Slide Image Analysis of Elevated Stromal Content and Extracellular Matrix Protein Expression Predicts Adverse Prognosis in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer with a poor prognosis and limited treatment options. This study evaluates the prognostic value of stromal markers in TNBC, focusing on the tumor-stroma ratio (TSR) and overall stroma ratio (OSR) in whole slide images (WSI), as well as the expression of type-I collagen, type-III collagen, and fibrillin-1 on tissue microarrays (TMAs), using both visual assessment and digital image analysis (DIA). A total of 101 female TNBC patients, primarily treated with surgery between 2005 and 2016, were included.

Revisiting surgical margins for invasive breast cancer patients treated with breast conservation therapy - Evidence for adopting a 1 mm negative width.

Clinical trials have demonstrated conclusively the non-inferiority of breast-conserving surgery followed by breast radiation therapy (BCT) compared with mastectomy for the treatment of early-stage invasive breast cancer (BC). The definition of the required surgical margin to ensure adequate removal of the cancer by BCT to obtain an acceptable low local recurrence (LR) rate remains controversial. Meta-analyses published by Houssami et al.