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This Week in the Journal of Clinical Pathology

July 11, 2012

Researchers led by Miraca Life Sciences' Richard Lash report in the Journal of Clinical Pathology that material from biopsies can be used to determine KRAS mutational status in colorectal cancer patients. Using both PCR and Sanger sequencing, the researchers performed KRAS mutational analysis on biopsy and surgical resection specimens from 30 colorectal cancer patients. They found that 40 percent of the tumors had KRAS mutations and that there was 100 percent correlation between biopsy and resection specimens. Lash and his colleagues write that this study supports "the reliability of using endoscopic biopsy specimens for the assessment of KRAS status before anti-EGFR therapy."

Also in the Journal of Clinical Pathology, Brazilian researchers present their work evaluating whether NF-κB expression can be used to predict radiotherapy response in advanced cervical cancer patients. The researchers examined NF-κB-p65 and NF-κB-p50 expression in 32 patients with stage IB2 and IIB cervical cancer before they underwent radiotherapy. Expression levels were also determined 12 patients who had residual tumors after radiotherapy. While the researchers found that most patients expressed NF-κB in the cytoplasm prior to radiotherapy, such expression could not be used to predict which patients would have residual disease.