New Technologies for Diagnosing Pediatric Tumors Expert Opinion on Medical Diagnostics

BACKGROUND: The completion of Human Genome Project (HGP) has paved the way for novel, more detailed and accurate molecular diagnostic classification of cancer. With the information from the HGP, cancers can be categorized not only on the morphology or limited immunohistological markers, but according to their "molecular fingerprints" such as gene expression profiles. Technologies detecting these signatures have been developed to simultaneously measure multiple genes or proteins in one assay with high sensitivity and specificity. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate potential innovative novel methods of diagnosis and prognosis in pediatric cancers. METHODS: We selected a variety of promising new diagnostic technologies utilizing molecular signatures which harness the results from HGP including DNA microarray, bead-based detection system, multiplexed RT-PCR, MesoScale Discovery (MSD), and isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT), as well as their applications in biomarker discovery for pediatric tumors. Label-free detection technologies and the obstacles for taking these new diagnostic technologies from the bench to the bedside are also discussed. CONCLUSION: The use of molecular signatures is gaining acceptance in clinical practice. However, technical challenges need to be addressed before incorporating these new technologies into current diagnostic and prognostic schema.