Cytogenetic and genetic studies in solid tumors: background.
Cytogenetic and genetic studies of solid tumors are an area of continuing rapid growth and discovery. They provide an excellent resource for students interested in research, but more importantly have the potential to benefit patients. As has already happened in the leukemias, identifying certain genetic abnormalities can establish a definite diagnosis and/or can indicate likely response to treatment. Other chromosome abnormalities are ubiquitous, such as rearrangements of chromosome 1, and do not appear to correlate with other clinical features; however, even abnormalities of this sort serve to distinguish between malignancy and reactive conditions. Trisomy 7 is also common in many kinds of tumor and has been found as the sole abnormality in cells from tissues surrounding a tumor; the significance of this is not clear: Either trisomy 7 is associated with some reactive response in normal cells, or else it was a primary clonal abnormality and indicated the presence of infiltrating early malignant cells.
Swansbury
John
J
Academic Haematology and Cytogenetics, The Royal Marsden NHS Trust, The Institute of Cancer Research, Surrey, UK.
D003582:Cytogenetics / Q000379:methods*; D005821:Genetic Techniques; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*