PTEN test

Sammy · 06-19-2006, 07:25 AM

I have read on this forum that some of us have got PTEN test done. Could you please tell me how is this test done....? I mean , is it a blood test... ?

tousled1 · 06-19-2006, 07:53 AM

Sammy,

If you go to search and type in PTEN, you will get all previous posts on this subject which should answer all your questions.

Sammy · 06-19-2006, 12:31 PM

I did read all the past articles. I still needed clarification , if the tumor is already removed then how do they test for PTEN ? Is there a Serum test for this like Her2 or is it only at tissue level ?

RobinP · 06-19-2006, 04:46 PM

Hi Sam,

I had my pTEN tested; it was positive- yahoo. I had my labatory that stores my tumor tissue block,forward some slices of the block to TMD- Targeted Molecular Diagnostics.Then TMD had the report back to me within days. Good luck.

Sammy · 06-20-2006, 10:04 AM

Thank you all for clarification. But, due to my ignorance I have another question. If the tumor is already excised then how does the PTEN test predict response of Herceptin. If herceptin still depends on PTEN after tumor excision then I guess it PTEN should be available by serum test also... ?

RobinP · 06-20-2006, 12:02 PM

If you have pTEN present or if you are pTEN positive that is a good thing as Herceptin activates pTEN so it can stop proliferation of the her2 postive cancer cell. As far as I know there is currently no serum pTEN test available; it is done on tissue block probably via Western blot assays.

fcrcm · 07-19-2006, 09:18 AM

Sammy,

I am only now reading this thread (July) so this answer may be late. In answer to your question re: how to get cells from an excised tumor, usually tumors are kept frozen at the hospital and available for further testing for many years. Ask your doctor where yours is.

If you have metastsis (other than bone) a slice of that tumor will also give the information too.

I had my mastectomy in 1991, so when we were wondering about Her2Nu we used a slice of my liver tumor (discovered in 2005) rather than excavating the old tumor.

Hope you are still reading this thread and that this info helps.

fcrcm

Lani · 07-19-2006, 11:23 AM

I beg to differ. From what I understand, Tumors are kept for years at hospitals, but not frozen, rather paraffin embedded. This allows it to be tested with oncodx, for her2 pten and other IHC and rna based tests but not with microgene array and other dna based tests as I understand it.

For those who are having your primary or mets biopsied now--ask to have a small amount of it fresh frozen as that will allow the cutting edge microgene array based tests to be performed on it as knowledge advances in the (hopefully) not so distant future.

fcrcm · 07-20-2006, 09:15 AM

Thanks for the clarification. I hope it helps Sammy and others too, of course.

fcrcm

Jean · 07-20-2006, 04:16 PM

There is as yet no good drug to target the PTEN pathway. Velcade is not a good drug for this pathway as it really targets a protein degradeation pathway
mediated throught the endosome in the cell. There is a connection however it is tangential, between these pathways but it is far too tenuous to make a therapeutic decision. Moreover, the data are not at all clear that the PTEN alteration plays a direct role in HER2 positive tumors. There is no need for PTEN
testing at this point in time and it would not alter a treatment plan.

Hope this helps!
Jean