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Translocation Testing of Lung Cancer Biomarkers

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Precision Molecular Pathology of Lung Cancer

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Abstract

Detection of gene rearrangements has evolved from classical cytogenetic karyotyping through CGH/aCGH to FISH and RT-PCR. Gene rearrangements cause fusion protein overexpression, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) has been increasingly used as a surrogate method for detection of gene rearrangements. Recently several next-generation sequencing platforms for detection of gene fusions have been developed and implemented into clinical practice. Gene rearrangements have been successfully identified with both FISH and IHC in isolated circulating tumor cells (CTCs). CTCs and cell-free tumor DNA (cfDNA) will most likely be used in clinical practice for detection of rearrangements. This chapter will mainly focus on ALK FISH and RT-PCR assays as an example for translocation testing in lung cancer.

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Correspondence to Sanja Dacic MD, PhD .

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Dacic, S. (2018). Translocation Testing of Lung Cancer Biomarkers. In: Cagle, P., et al. Precision Molecular Pathology of Lung Cancer. Molecular Pathology Library. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62941-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62941-4_8

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62941-4

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