Core biopsy diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ: an indication for sentinel lymph node biopsy.

Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a minimally invasive, accurate method of evaluating axillary lymph nodes in patients with invasive cancer. The technique has also been applied successfully in patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The purpose of this study was to review our experience performing SLNB in patients with a biopsy diagnosis of DCIS.

High-throughput proteomic analysis of human infiltrating ductal carcinoma of the breast.

Large-scale proteomics will play a critical role in the rapid display, identification and validation of new protein targets, and elucidation of the underlying molecular events that are associated with disease development, progression and severity. However, because the proteome of most organisms are significantly more complex than the genome, the comprehensive analysis of protein expression changes will require an analytical effort beyond the capacity of standard laboratory equipment. We describe the first high-throughput proteomic analysis of human breast infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDCA) using OCT (optimal cutting temperature) embedded biopsies, two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2-D DIGE) technology and a fully automated spot handling workstation.

High-throughput loss of heterozygosity mapping in 26 commonly deleted regions in breast cancer.

Capillary array electrophoresis and laser-assisted microdissection, which provide increased speed and accuracy in loss of heterozygosity studies, are often used independently in studying breast cancer; the successful coupling of these emerging technologies, however, must overcome technical problems, especially those related to the poor quality and quality of DNA typically retrieved from archival tumor samples. Here we present a panel of 52 microsatellite markers from 26 of the most commonly deleted regions in breast cancer. All markers have been optimized to robustly amplify DNA extracted from paraffin-embedded samples, represent informative (highly polymorphic) loci, and effectively detect chromosomal loss.