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Review
. 2021 Feb 18;11(2):339.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11020339.

The Role of the Pathologist in the Next-Generation Era of Tumor Molecular Characterization

Valentina Angerilli  1 , Francesca Galuppini  1 , Fabio Pagni  2 , Nicola Fusco  3   4 , Umberto Malapelle  5 , Matteo Fassan  1
Affiliations
Free PMC article
Review

The Role of the Pathologist in the Next-Generation Era of Tumor Molecular Characterization

Valentina Angerilli et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .
Free PMC article

Abstract

Current pathology practice is being shaped by the increasing complexity of modern medicine, in particular of precision oncology, and major technological advances. In the "next-generation technologies era", the pathologist has become the person responsible for the integration and interpretation of morphologic and molecular information and for the delivery of critical answers to diagnostic, prognostic and predictive queries, acquiring a prominent position in the molecular tumor boards.

Keywords: molecular pathology; next generation technologies; oncology; predictive biomarkers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests to declare related to the presented work. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of next-generation pathologist area of expertise, from tissue management and analysis (A), including cytological samples and body fluids (B,C), to fully morpho-molecular characterization (D–F) of patients. (G–J): schematic representation of integrative data analysis among drug dose–response (G), cell line expression profile (H) and next-generation results on DNA (I) and RNA (J). Credit by Biorender.
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