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Application of Image‐Guided Coring as a new technique for targeting breast tumor tissue in molecular pathology
Author(s) -
MontaserKouhsari Laleh,
Christensen Stephen,
Knoblauch Nicholas W,
Baker Gabrielle,
Beck Andrew H
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.lb460
Subject(s) - breast cancer , coring , breast tissue , sampling (signal processing) , digital image analysis , breast tumor , biomedical engineering , digital pathology , pathology , computer science , medicine , cancer , materials science , computer vision , drilling , filter (signal processing) , metallurgy
Background There are several techniques available to sample tissue from archival formalin‐fixed paraffin‐embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks. However, current techniques are either extremely labor intensive or lack precision for accurately sampling small lesions. Herein, we explain a new image‐guided coring (IGC) technique to conquer these limitations for molecular analyses. Design The H&E slides were scanned by the whole slide digital panoramic scanner (3D‐Histech). Then, a pathologist selects regions of interest from these digital images using the Pannoramic Viewer Software package (3D‐Histech). This annotated slide is overlaid onto digital image of the FFPE block via TMA‐Master software (3D‐Histech) and a computer‐guided robotic arm is used to sample cores from the targeted regions of the FFPE tissue block. This selectively acquired tissue is then used for molecular analyses. Results We applied IGC to 770 FFPE breast samples from the Nurses’ Health Study including 389 invasive carcinomas and 381 normal terminal duct lobular unit samples. The median concentration of extracted RNA in tumor and normal samples was 127 ng/ml and 23.31 ng/ml, respectively. A high success rate of adequate RNA extraction (20 ng/mL) from tumor and normal breast tissue via IGC was obtained (88.9% and 55.4%, respectively). Conclusion IGC is a robust new approach to obtain samples from FFPE blocks in large‐scale projects in molecular oncologic pathology. We applied this new method to accurately sample breast cancer and normal breast tissue from FFPE samples with high success rates. This method may prove generally useful for clinical molecular diagnostics as well as translational tissue‐based biomedical research.