title: Molecular pathology of cancer: how to communicate with disease.
abstract: Recent technical advances have brought insights into the biology of cancer in human, establishing it as a disease driven by genetic mutations. Beside inherited family tumour syndromes caused by germline mutations, somatic genetic alterations occur early in tumourigenesis, which accumulate during the progression of the disease and its treatment. Based on these observations, medical oncology has started to enter an era of stratified medicine, where treatment selection is becoming tailored to drugable molecular pathways. As a pre-requisite of an individualised treatment concept, molecular and genetic characterisation of the individual tumour has to be performed to align the most appropriate therapies according to the patient's disease. Reading the individual molecular tumour profile and responding by a tailored treatment concept is the 'communication' required to fight this deadly disease. This way to communicate is currently changing the field of oncology dramatically, and fundamentally involves the discipline of molecular pathology. This review highlights the role of genetic characterisation of human malignancies by giving an overview on the basic methods of molecular pathology, the challenge of the instable tumour genome and its clinical consequences.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  EK1541/2012.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology , Medical University of Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Birner
authors.affiliation: Clinical Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine I , Comprehensive Cancer Center Vienna, Medical University of Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Prager
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology , Medical University of Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Berthold
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Streubel
keywords: Next generation sequencing; Oncology; Personalized medicine; Targeted therapies