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?Benign vs. Malignant Tumors
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By Bioinfkat, Section Biology
Posted on Thu Apr 29th, 2010 at 12:56:38 PM PST
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Examining the genome and/or transcriptome of a benign mass in addition to malignant and matched normal tissue can shed light on the process of evolution of a normal tissue to a cancerous one.
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A tumor found in a patient is first classified into one of the two broad categories of benign or malignant. Benign tumors are the ones that grow locally without invading nearby tissues. Malignant tumors, on the other hand, do invade the tissues around them and often they leave their primary site to invade a more distant organ. The benign tumors are rarely the cause of death; they might have some side effects such as pushing against the organs around them or secreting abnormal amount of hormones, for instance, thyroid or pituitary benign masses can cause hormone imbalances. But most cancer-related mortalities derive from malignant tumors and as a result the majority of the effort in cancer research has been focused on these malignant masses. In a typical whole genome/transcriptome analysis, the sequence of the malignant tumor is compared with the sequence of matched normal tissue of the patient. However, we know that the great majority of the primary tumors start as harmless benign tumors and over a period of time, after accumulating more mutations, they turn into malignant tumors. I propose the idea of examining not only the genomes and transcriptomes of malignant tumors and their matched normal tissues but also the benign masses and their matched normal tissues and, if possible, their matched malignant tissues. A normal tissue goes through many stages of transformation, in most cases this will include a benign tumor stage, before it becomes malignant. Sequencing and comparing a benign tissue, its malignant form, when it appears, and the matched normal tissue can shed light on the process of evolution and the mutations responsible for causing the cancer phenotype.
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