Dr. Wistuba on Maximizing Outcomes With Limited Tissue in Lung Cancer

Ignacio I. Wistuba, MD, chair, Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, Division of Pathology/Lab Medicine, Anderson Clinical Faculty Chair for Cancer Treatment and Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses how pathologists maximize outcomes with limited tissue in patients with lung cancer.

Challenges with using tissue-based diagnostic tools are related to the shrinking size of available tissue, Wistuba explains, although this is less invasive for patients.

As a community, pathologists have been questioning how much tissue is truly needed to give the best histological diagnosis possible. For example, Wistuba says rather than administering 5 immunohistochemical tests on a patient, 3 is more effective.