Cancer Targeted Therapy Strategy: The Pathologist's Perspectives.

The effectiveness of new personalized treatment procedures in oncology is based on the fact that certain tumors exhibit specific molecular features. More in detail, neoplastic tissues of patients should display a specific biomarker, most often a specific genetic alteration and/or under/overexpression of a definite protein, that could be the target of its respective drug. Immunohistochemical and molecular analyses, which usually include examination of nucleic acids from either tissues or fluids, are common tests to define the status of a tumor.

KRAS and BRAF mutational status in colon cancer from Albanian patients.

Background: Numerous clinical studies have shown that anti-EGFR therapies are effective only in a subset of patients with colorectal cancer. Mutations in the KRAS and BRAF genes have been confirmed as negative predictors of the response to EGFR-targeted therapies.In this study we evaluated KRAS and BRAF status in 159 colorectal cancer samples obtained from the University of Tirana.

Classification of patients with breast cancer according to Nottingham prognostic index highlights significant differences in immunohistochemical marker expression.

Background: Prognosis and treatment of patients with breast carcinoma of no special type (NST) is dependent on a few established parameters, such as tumor size, histological grade, lymph node stage, expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER-2/neu, and proliferation index. The original Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI) employs a three-tiered classification system that stratifies patients with breast cancer into good, moderate, and poor prognostic groups. The aim of our study was to use robust immunohistochemical methodology for determination of ER, PR, HER-2/neu, Ki-67, p53, and Bcl-2, and to observe differences in the expression of these markers when patients are stratified according to the original, three-tiered Nottingham Prognostic Index.