Molecular pathological identification of predictive biomarkers. A new task for diagnostic pathology

The clinical management of cancer patients is still based to a great extent on the histological staging, grading, and tumor typing performed by the pathologist. As a result part of the patients are subjected to unnecessary treatment regimens with high rates of side effects and no advantages while another part of the patients could benefit from (adjuvant) therapies they would not routinely receive based on their tumor staging/grading. This situation has led to a search for so-called predictive biomarkers, which would allow better assessment of the clinical course, probability of metastases, and the efficacy of the treatment method, thus making it possible to individualize treatment for each cancer patient.