Digital pathology in personalized cancer therapy.

The development of small molecule inhibitors of the growth factor receptors and discovery of somatic mutations of the thyrosine kinase domain resulted in new paradigms for the cancers therapy. Digital microscopy is an important tool for surgical pathologists. The achievements in the digital pathology field have modified the workflow of pathomorphology labs, enhanced the pathologists' role in the diagnostics and increased their contribution to the personalized targeted medicine. Digital image analysis is now available in a variety of platforms to improve quantification performance of diagnostic pathology. The authors describe the state of digital microscopy as it applies to the field of quantitative immunohistochemistry of biomarkers related to the clinical personalized targeted therapy of breast cancer, non-small lung cancer and colorectal cancer: HER-2, EGFR, KRAS and BRAF genes. The information is derived from the experience of the authors and review of the literature.