SHORT REPORT

Reliability of the tissue microarray based FISH for evaluation of the HER-2 oncogene in breast carcinoma

D Gancberg¹, A Di Leo¹, G Rouas¹, T Järvinen³, A Verhest², J Isola³, M J Piccart¹ and D Larsimont²

¹ Translational Research Unit of the Chemotherapy Department, Jules Bordet Institute, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
² Pathology Department, Jules Bordet Institute
³ Laboratory of Cancer Genetics, Institute of Medical Technology, Tampere University Hospital and University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr D Gancberg, Translational Research Unit, c/o Department of Chemotherapy, 1 Rue Heger-Bordet, 1000 Brussels, Belgium;
dgan24{at}hotmail.com

Aims: 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.

Conclusion: Tumour microarray is a highly reliable method for analysing HER-2 oncogene amplification by FISH in human breast tumours.

Keywords: fluorescence in situ hybridisation; tissue microarray; breast carcinoma; HER-2

Abbreviations: FISH, fluorescence in situ hybridisation; IHC, immunohistochemistry; SSC, saline sodium citrate

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