Molecular Diagnosis and Prognosis

Detection of DNA and RNA alterations and proteins associated with cancer are used as indicators or biomarkers for specific tumor traits that help in cancer diagnosis and patient management. Molecular diagnosis in cancer is a new discipline that incorporates genomic and proteomic information related to malignant, premalignant and normal tissues from which clinically useful cancer biomarkers are expected to be identified. The goal is to find and clinically validate biomarkers associated with cancer risk, early detection, phenotypic tumor aggressivity, tumor staging, or biomarkers associated to prognosis such as response to treatment, disease recurrence and survival. Challenges for achieving this goal arise from a need of significant economic investment, as well as a multidisciplinary approach and the inherent molecular complexity of cancer itself.

Keywords: Cancer biomarkers, PCR, antigens, chromosomal translocations, RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, oncogenomics, oncoproteomics.