These tumors can be challenging to diagnose because they are so rare, and as a pathologist
and neuropathologist, my role is to be a part of the team where I can give the most precise
diagnosis possible to help the study move forward and help the patients with these tumors
get the best treatment for their disease. Precision medicine, as many people have heard
of, it requires a number of components. One of them is a precision diagnosis. Without
a proper diagnosis, a lot of precision medicine afterwards cannot, may not, go as well as
one would hope. So, one wants to make sure, especially in rare brain tumors, that the
diagnosis is prioritized, so that it may be that there’s no issue, the diagnosis is
perfectly fine. And so, I don’t mean to imply that it wouldn’t be, however, it’s
worth the conversation with, especially if it is a rare tumor, to make sure that the
case has been examined by a neuropathologist who has experience seeing these kinds of tumors
and if necessary, has been consulted with, perhaps, another neuropathologist at another
center just to make sure because there can be issues with rare tumors where a pathologist
may not have seen a lot of these particular tumor types so it could benefit from consultation.
Another advantage of NCI-CONNECT is that our standard is that for every case is reviewed,
the histopathology slides are reviewed by us personally as neuropathologists, in addition,
we ask for tissue in the form of a tissue block or unstained slides, which are available
at the pathology department where the patient received their operation. And with this tissue,
we undergo, perhaps, additional staining to kind of help us diagnose this tumor. So, that’s
our new standard of care, that every case receives an integrated diagnosis that includes
histopathology and includes molecular analysis. That’s are standard of care. And so, I think
that’s another added value of the NCI-CONNECT program, which is unique. That is, this is
something that we do routinely. We’re getting more and more experience with this. And with
that, we can sometimes uncover unexpected and unusual things that may not have been
picked up from the original pathology. One advantage of an initiative such as NCI-CONNECT
is the ability to collect reasonable sized numbers of these rare tumors. Seen in isolation,
they can be difficult to classify, but, when collected as groups, one can begin to understand
them and to more accurately classify them because we’re gaining more experience with
that. In addition, we share knowledge and information with the community of brain tumor
researchers and neuropathologists, both within the United States and across the world essentially.
And by consulting with our colleagues, we can share our information and with that collective
experience we can make better diagnosis. We’re better able to accurately classify these into
specific clinical pathologic entities that I think will be better for the patients who
have these tumors.
Learn more at: cancer.gov/nci-connect. Contact us: nciconnect@mail.nih.gov – (240) 760-6530.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services – National Institutes of Health – National
Cancer Institute. cancer.gov. 1-800-4-CANCER. Produced May 2020.