Reliability of the tissue microarray based FISH for evaluation of the HER-2 oncogene in breast carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
Tumour tissue microarray allows the analysis of hundreds of tumour samples simultaneously on a single microscope slide. However, the extremely small tissue samples taken from the original tissue may not always be representative of the entire tumour.


METHODS
The reliability of this new technology was investigated by analysing HER-2 oncogene amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) from representative slides of the whole tumour and small tissue core biopsies from 29 invasive breast tumours.


RESULTS
The tissue microarray method had high accuracy; in only one of 29 cases (3.4%; 95% confidence interval, 0% to 10%) were the results discordant with whole tumour analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
Tumour microarray is a highly reliable method for analysing HER-2 oncogene amplification by FISH in human breast tumours.
Gancberg
D
D
Translational Research Unit of the Chemotherapy Department, Jules Bordet Institute, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. dgan24@hotmail.com
Di Leo
A
A
Rouas
G
G
Järvinen
T
T
Verhest
A
A
Isola
J
J
Piccart
M J
MJ
Larsimont
D
D
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics*; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005260:Female; D018734:Genes, erbB-2; D006801:Humans; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D015415:Biomarkers; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm