Anthony M. Magliocco, MD

Anthony M. Magliocco, MD, chair of pathology, executive director of esoteric labs at Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses the pathologist&rsquo;s role when treating a patient with melanoma.

In addition to the primary practitioner, there is a team of experts that can help guide treatment by providing information on molecular genetics, therapy, and radiation oncology

A molecular pathologist can help a primary practitioner understand a tumor, the best technology platform to use, how to interpret data, and more

It is important for a primary practitioner to become familiar with the laboratories they work with in order to better understand the technologies, how they are changing, and what impact they can have on patients

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Anthony M. Magliocco, MD, discusses the pathologistâ€™s role when treating a patient with melanoma.

The Role of the Pathologist During Melanoma Treatment

Anthony M. Magliocco, MD, chair of pathology, executive director of esoteric labs at Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses the difficulties of analyzing the genome of melanoma tumors.

Although physicians can now do thorough analyses of the genome, certain tumors, including melanoma tumors, have high mutational loads. This makes it difficult to determine which mutations cause the tumors and which mutations are &ldquo;passenger mutations,&rdquo; Magliocco says.

Magliocco speculates that melanoma tumors have more mutations because of sun exposure or mechanisms of DNA repair that lead to tumors to acquire more mutations.

In order to determine if the mutations are significant or not, Magliocco says, a molecular biologist looks to see if the mutations occur on an important gene, the mutation is impacting a function of the protein, or if the mutation biologically makes sense to cause the tumor to grow.

Going forward, physicians could screen for mutations and tier the mutations based on the present knowledge of each mutation, Magliocco says. Tier 1 mutations would be known driver mutations for the tumor while tier 3 mutations would be the mutations that physicians know the least about.

Melanoma tumors show high mutational loads, making it difficult to determine which mutations cause the tumor and which mutations are just &ldquo;passenger mutations&rdquo;

Molecular biologists try to determine if a mutation is responsible for tumor growth by studying how it interacts

In the future, physicians will tier the mutations based on how influential the mutation is on the growth of the tumor

Anthony M. Magliocco, MD, discusses the difficulties of analyzing the genome of melanoma tumors.

Anthony M. Magliocco, MD | Authors

Articles

The Role of the Pathologist During Melanoma Treatment

Analyzing the Genome of Melanoma Tumors