Molecular Pathology is performed in the Lab of Molecular Pathology of the Unit Molecular and ImmunoPathology (MIP). Molecular Biological techniques are performed on about 10-15% of all tissues handed in for diagnostics. The analyses performed are detection of viruses (a.o Human Papilloma Virus), mutation and translocation analysis in tumors, analysis of chromosomal aberrations and microsatellite instabilities in tumors, and clonal analysis in T- or B-cel malignancies. Microsattellite analysis for the detection of chimerism is performed on blood samples after bone marrow transplantation and similar techniques are applied for tissue identification.
The techniques are used to identify viral infections, hereditary chromosomal aberrations, and minor or major changes in DNA or RNA of tumors. The latter can be important to determine the grade of malignancy of tumors, hereditary of tumors, or determine the efficacy of treatments. Molecular Pathology is always performed in combination with the diagnostic histopathology.
Techniques used for this analysis are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and various techniques based on PCR, DNA sequention analysis, and in situ hybridisation (FISH and CISH).