Prostate cancer is the third highest cause of male mortality in the developed world, with the burden of the disease increasing dramatically with demographic change. There are significant limitations to the current diagnostic regimens and no established effective screening modality. To this end, research has discovered hundreds of potential 'biomarkers' that may one day be of use in screening, diagnosis or prognostication. However, the barriers to bringing biomarkers to clinical evaluation and eventually into clinical usage have yet to be realised. This is an operational challenge that requires some new thinking and development of paradigms to increase the efficiency of the laboratory process and add 'value' to the clinician. Value comes in various forms, whether it be a process that is seamlessly integrated into the hospital laboratory environment or one that can provide additional 'information' for the clinical pathologist in terms of risk profiling. We describe, herein, an efficient and tissue-conserving pipeline that uses Tissue Microarrays in a semi-automated process that could, one day, be integrated into the hospital laboratory domain, using seven putative prostate cancer biomarkers for illustration.
Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland). 2018 Jul 27*** epublish ***
Kevin Cao, Callum Arthurs, Ali Atta-Ul, Michael Millar, Mariana Beltran, Jochen Neuhaus, Lars-Christian Horn, Rui Henrique, Aamir Ahmed, Christopher Thrasivoulou
Prostate Cancer Research Centre at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK. ., Prostate Cancer Research Centre at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK. ., Prostate Cancer Research Centre, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. ., Queen's Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK. ., Aquila BioMedical, Nine, Edinburgh BioQuarter, 9 Little France Road, Edinburgh EH16 4UX, UK. ., Head of Urology Research Laboratories, University of Leipzig, Department of Urology, Research Laboratory, Liebigstr. 19, Building C, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ., Division of Gynecologic, Breast & Perinatal Pathology, University Hospital Leipzig, Liebigstasse 24 D, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ., Department of Pathology, Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal. ., Prostate Cancer Research Centre at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK. ., Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, The Centre for Cell and Molecular Dynamics, Rockefeller Building, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. .