Abstract

Aims: Tumour tissue microarray allows the analysis of hundreds of tumour samples simultaneously on a single microscope slide. However, the extremely small tissue samples taken from the original tissue may not always be representative of the entire tumour.

Methods: The reliability of this new technology was investigated by analysing HER-2 oncogene amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) from representative slides of the whole tumour and small tissue core biopsies from 29 invasive breast tumours.

Results: The tissue microarray method had high accuracy; in only one of 29 cases (3.4%; 95% confidence interval, 0% to 10%) were the results discordant with whole tumour analysis.

Conclusion: Tumour microarray is a highly reliable method for analysing HER-2 oncogene amplification by FISH in human breast tumours.