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Tissue microarrays are blocks of wax that contain large sets of tissue samples. Each block can contain hundreds of samples from different cancer cases - each just under a millimeter across. Tissue microarrays are designed to include enough samples of different tumors so that researchers can determine whether a particular marker is unique to a specific cancer site.
NCI is also creating tissue microarrays designed to give researchers enough statistical power to determine if specific markers change as the disease progresses. These arrays are specific to one type of cancer and contain tissue samples from patients diagnosed at different stages. Breast cancer tissue arrays are available from the NCI Cooperative Breast Cancer Tissue Resource.
NCI offers tissue microarrays for ovarian cancer, colon and rectal cancer, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer. The Cancer Diagnosis Program is working with NCI-supported Clinical Cooperative Groups to make arrays containing
tissue samples from randomized clinical trials. Researchers will use these tissue microarrays to evaluate markers that can predict whether a patient is likely to respond to a particular therapy.
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