Techniques are numerous but include quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), multiplex PCR, DNA microarray, in situ hybridization, in situ RNA sequencing, DNA sequencing, antibody based immunofluorescence tissue assays, molecular profiling of pathogens, and analysis of bacterial genes for antimicrobial resistance .
The American Medical Association (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) manual states molecular pathology procedures are medical laboratory procedures involving the analyses of nucleic acid to detect variants in genes that may be indicative of germline (e.g., constitutional disorders) or somatic (e.g., neoplasia) .
Put simply, molecular pathology is the study of disease at the molecular level.
This includes molecules found in tissues, organs, and even bodily fluids.
The term “molecular diagnostics” is often used to describe the medical diagnosis aspect of the field..
, 11 February 2022 In the last decade, molecular cytopathology has emerged as a rapidly evolving field of diagnostic and predictive pathology ( 1 ), with an increasing number of molecular tests performed with a high degree of versatility on a range of cytological preparations
In addition to the predictive response to tumor targeted treatments, molecular profiling of cytological samples is also currently useful in diagnostics to stratify atypical and undetermined cytology diagnoses into low and high-malignancy risk categories
The rapid development of molecular diagnostic assays in surgical pathology has revolutionized the practice of cytopathology with the adoption of these same tests in cytology samples, thereby adding a genomic dimension to the world of diagnostic cytopathology
