Molecular pathology of cancer and the application of clinical sequencing on tumor samples at Landspitali

Title: Molecular pathology of cancer and the application of clinical sequencing on tumor samples at Landspitali

Speaker: Bylgja Hilmarsdóttir, PhD. Clinical Scientist, Pathology Department Landspitali

Abstract: The importance of molecular profiling of tumor tissue in clinical context has increased rapidly over the last decades, leading the way in personalized cancer treatment. Tumor mutational profile analysis by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is currently widely applied in clinical practice and can be used in various applications, such as for detecting prognostic biomarkers, supporting diagnosis of cancer types, and finding specific tumoral molecular alterations the guide the selection of targeted therapy.

In this lecture I will give an overview in how molecular diagnostics on tumor tissue can aid in diagnosis and impact selection of optimal cancer treatment. I will discuss where the field is headed, the benefits of using NGS to analyze tumor tissue and how it can be best applied. Lastly I will talk about the scope of routine clinical tumor sequencing in Iceland and give examples where NGS has been applied in this context in the clinic.