Περίληψη:
Evaluation of the prognostic parameters of gynecologic cancer has shown
their failure for classification according to the clinical behavior or
the prediction of its outcome. This weakness has important implications
on prognosis and treatment. The increasing understanding of the
complexity of the human genome, coupled with the development of high
throughput analysis techniques and bioinformatics tools, has changed our
concepts on cancer biology, by shifting our targets to a global analysis
of the transcriptome and the proteome, linking genes and their products
into functional pathways. These approaches permit the documentation of
expression patterns of thousands of genes within a cell. With the use of
DNA microarray technology, it is feasible to identify signature patterns
of expression in tumor samples that faithfully correlate with its
biology, providing accurate prognosis for each cancer patient and thus a
rational customized treatment. At this stage, there is a need for
systematic studies for the validation of these novel approaches. In this
review, we provide a basic back-round of the concept of the technology,
highlight several ernerging issues from their applications on
gynecologic cancer, discuss a series of important themes and problems
regarding their interpretation and relevance for the clinicians, and
comment on future areas of research. (C) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
