Tag Archives: Colorectal cancer

May 2023—Behold the common coin. Note its two sides, its easy flippability. Here is Joseph Pizzolato, MD, with the first coin toss. Given the expanded use of biomarkers with a variety of tumors, and constantly evolving assays, how hard is it for medical oncologists to navigate testing? “It’s not difficult at all now,” says a cheerful Dr. Pizzolato, medical director of the comprehensive therapeutic unit of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Health System, as well as medical director of the Aventura satellite at Sylvester. With third-party companies integrating test ordering directly into electronic medical records, he adds, “It’s getting even easier to order tests and see the results.” Agreed, says his colleague Rhonda Yantiss, MD, director of surgical pathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. And therein lies the problem. “It’s kind of a mess,” she says. In practice, precision medicine is becoming both more and less precise.

August 2020—Tumor budding is a robust prognostic marker that should be reported at least in pT1 and stage II colorectal carcinomas and taken into account with other risk factors. Further evidence is needed for tumor budding assessment in specimens taken after neoadjuvant therapy, says Heather Dawson, MD, senior staff GI pathologist at the Institute of Pathology, University of Bern in Switzerland.

July 2020—When patients who have colorectal cancer surgery at another institution seek further care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the Beth Israel pathologists routinely request the original slides. Raul S. Gonzalez, MD, a gastrointestinal pathologist at Beth Israel, says he usually agrees with everything the outside pathologist reports. But if there are differences, lymph nodes versus tumor deposits is one place where he might disagree.