Aplicación de los Tissue Microarrays en el estudio inmunohistoquímico de los tumores Applying Tissue Microarrays in Tumor Immunohistochemistry Studies

SUMMARY Tissue microarrays (TMAs) allow the congregation of more than 1000 tumors in a single microscope slide. It can be used for diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarker analysis that permits the evaluation of therapeutic strategies or selection of molecular studies. The TMAs allow the detection of DNA and RNA by fluorescent in situ hybridization and protein detection by immunohistochemistry. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of TMAs to differentiate tumors in morphologic studies and to assess the potential of the TMAs as a tool for immunohistochemistry. The TMAs were performed in lung adenocarcinoma, colon adenocarcinoma, squamous carcinomas and lung oat-cell carcinoma. The study was carry out on the Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias in Spain. We found that 3 cylinder cuts of each sample provided a quantitative and qualitative representation of each tumor. The quick processing time of the samples, the ability to analyze multiple samples at the same time, and wide area for analysis are the advantages of this technique. In conclusion the TMAs is a promising tool for investigation that will help in getting results in a shorter period of time.