Quel matériel biologique et comment ?

The increase number of methods to be perform from various biospecimens in thoracic oncology field raises the following question: How to set up a new strategy for the best handling of tissular and cellular samples. The diagnosis, but also the prognosis and the theragnosis of lung cancer have to be made by the pathologist from biological samples of smaller and smaller size. In this regard, the management of those specimens have to be think in a new way in the pathology laboratory, according to different expertises. Even though the morphological evaluation must be in all cases the key for the diagnosis, the number of immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization studies to be performed has to be evaluated in the same time, since the material could be rare. Moreover, it is necessary to think in parallel about the search of an increased number of mutations, in particular from DNA of quality. Finally, the integration of new biopathology approaches, such as the detection of peripheral biomarkers obtained from blood samples, as the detection of circulating tumour cells, should be also evaluated soon.