[How molecular biology can improve the clinical diagnosis of gliomas?]

Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors and include different diagnoses associated with a different prognosis. Histology remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of these tumors. However, pathologists may encounter diagnostic difficulties due to tumor heterogeneity or to the small size of the samples. Recently, major advances in discovery of molecular alterations of these cancers have led to the development of new molecular markers, some with a diagnostic role, others with a prognostic impact and / or predictive of therapeutic response. The testing of different molecular alterations such as 1p / 19q codeletion, mutations of IDH genes, p16 deletion, EGFR amplification or MGMT promoter methylation has been included in the daily practice in order to confirm the diagnosis, assess the patient prognosis and guide treatment choices.