Abstract
BackgroundTraditionally, tumors have been classified by their morphologic appearances. Unfortunately, tumors with similar histologic features often follow different clinical courses or respond differently to chemotherapy. Limitations in the clinical utility of morphology-based tumor classifications have prompted a search for a new tumor classification based on molecular analysis. Gene expression array data and proteomic data from tumor samples will provide complex data that is unobtainable from morphologic examination alone. The growing question facing cancer researchers is, "How can we successfully integrate the molecular, morphologic and clinical characteristics of human cancer to produce a helpful tumor classification?"DiscussionCurrent efforts to classify cancers based on molecular features ignore lessons learned from millennia of experience in biological classification. A tumor classification must include every type of tumor and must provide a unique place for each tumor within the classification. Groups within a classification inherit the properties of their ancestors and impart properties to their descendants. A classification was prepared grouping tumors according to their histogenetic development. The classification is simple (reducing the complexity of information received from the molecular analysis of tumors), comprehensive (providing a place for every tumor of man), and consistent with recent attempts to characterize tumors by cytogenetic and molecular features. The clinical and research value of this historical approach to tumor classification is discussed.SummaryThis manuscript reviews tumor classification and provides a new and comprehensive classification for neoplasia that preserves traditional nomenclature while incorporating information derived from the molecular analysis of tumors. The classification is provided as an open access XML document that can be used by cancer researchers to relate tumor classes with heterogeneous experimental and clinical tumor databases.
Highlights
Tumors have been classified by their morphologic appearances
Summary: This manuscript reviews tumor classification and provides a new and comprehensive classification for neoplasia that preserves traditional nomenclature while incorporating information derived from the molecular analysis of tumors
The classification is provided as an open access XML document that can be used by cancer researchers to relate tumor classes with heterogeneous experimental and clinical tumor databases
Summary
Tumors have been classified by their morphologic appearances. tumors with similar histologic features often follow different clinical courses or respond differently to chemotherapy. Challenge: creating a molecular classification of cancer In January 1999, the U.S National Cancer Institute (NCI) issued a challenge to the scientific community "to harness the power of comprehensive molecular analysis technologies to make the classification of tumors vastly more informative. BMC Cancer 2004, 4 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/4/10 distinctly different meanings have been used interchangeably with "classification," leading to considerable confusion among pathologists and cancer researchers. These terms are: identification, discrimination, taxonomy, and ontology [3]. Ontologies support queries and logical inferences pertaining to the [ontologic] group members
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