Molecular Diagnosis of Sarcomas
Dr. Robert Maki: Molecular pathology is increasingly important in terms of the diagnosis of sarcomas, both at a practical level in terms of telling you that the tumor is a sarcoma at all (as compared to say a more common cancer, which is typically a carcinoma or a lymphoma or a leukemia, for that matter), but also it's being used to help subtype even individual types of sarcoma to let us know whether Treatment A or Treatment B might be better.
We are beginning to look for markers within the individual tumor to see how it's different from other people who have that apparent same diagnosis. Because even though two tumors may look the same under the microscope, they may have other proteins that we don't recognize, at least just by eye, that may portend either a better chance of responding to treatment or a lower chance of responding to treatment. So increasingly, not only for sarcomas but all cancers, we are doing more detailed analyses of particular markers in tumors to find out if you may be a better candidate for a new treatment. And that will pretty much personalize or revolutionize, frankly, how we treat sarcomas in the future.