Project 3: A Genomic Approach to Improved Diagnosis and Treatment of Neuroendocrine Tumors

神经内分泌肿瘤(NETS)的发病率在过去30年中增加了5倍， 许多患者直到肿瘤转移后才会出现症状。尽管患有这些疾病的患者 尽管晚期，对分子生物学的进一步了解，肿瘤仍有可能延长生存期 Basis of Nets为改进诊断、成像和治疗提供了希望。我们假设分析 这些肿瘤及其外显子的基因表达谱将使我们能够识别重要的基因 促进这些肿瘤患者的临床进步。这一贡献将是重大的，因为它将 使我们能够确定肝转移患者和不明原因患者的肿瘤起源部位 原发肿瘤，这将导致更直接的外科手术探查和切除；以及细胞表面的知识 与正常组织相比，NETs中明显过度表达的受体或其他基因将促进 开发用于检测、成像和医疗管理的新目标。治疗的新靶点将 在这些肿瘤或生殖系中发现频繁突变或缺失的基因也提示 有家族性网络的患者。

The incidence of Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) has increased five-fold over the last three decades, and many patients do not develop symptoms until the tumors have metastasized. Although patients with these tumors may have prolonged survival despite advanced stage, further understanding of the molecular biologic basis of NETs holds the promise for improved diagnosis, imaging, and therapy. We hypothesize that analyzing the gene expression profiles of these tumors and their exomes will allow us to identify important genes that will facilitate clinical advances for patients with these tumors. This contribution will be significant because it will allow us to determine the tumor site of origin in patients presenting with liver metastases and unknown primaries, which will lead to more directed surgical exploration and resection; and knowledge of cell surface receptors or other genes significantly over-expressed in NETs relative to normal tissues will facilitate the development of new targets for detection, imaging, and medical management. Novel targets for therapy will also be suggested by the identification of frequently mutated or deleted genes in these tumors or the germline of patients with familial NETs.