New basic discoveries and frontiers in diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy in human thyroid, urinary bladder, and prostate tumors.

The fourth edition of this workshop mainly focused on three different human oncotypes, which included thyroid, urinary bladder, and prostate tumors as clinical models to gain new basic knowledge on tumor diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. At the previous editions (Giordano et al., 2000, J Cell Physiol 183:284-287; Giordano et al., 2001, J Cell Physiol 188:274-280; Giordano et al., 2002, J Cell Physiol 191:362-365), leaders in the fields of pathology, clinical oncology, and basic research presented and discussed the most recent and prevalent findings in such neoplasms from a basic and clinical perspective. A concept that has been widely proposed is that the analysis of intrinsic biological factors displayed by primary tumors may be a valid method for diagnosing different neoplasias and for measuring both their aggressiveness and response to therapy. To date, however, no single prognostic factor, such as oncogenes, suppressor genes, or genes involved in the control of the cell cycle and/or apoptosis has yet proven to be potent enough to be used in clinical practice as a prognostic and predictive factor. The new possibility to simultaneously analyze the expression of the complete repertoire of human genes and a large number of proteins could offer a new scenario in tumor classification, allowing for the formulation of a list of genes able to define a "signature" of tumor outcome. Moreover, starting from data obtained from biomolecular tumor analyses, it has been demonstrated that with this approach, it is also possible to design future therapeutic strategies.