Over the last three decades, cancer cytogenetics has become widely recognized both as a basic research tool for investigations of tumor biology and a clinical methodology providing vital insights into cancer development and progression. The first three editions of this acclaimed book presented a much-needed conceptual synthesis of this rapidly moving field. Now, Cancer Cytogenetics, Fourth Edition, offers a comprehensive, expanded, and up-to-date review of recent dramatic advances in this area, incorporating a vast amount of new data from the latest basic and clinical investigations. Edited by two leading experts, and now involving an expanded panel of international experts, the book offers an authoritative description of neoplastic processes at the chromosomal level of genomic organization. Cancer researchers, clinical oncologists, geneticists, and especially anyone interested in the translational aspects of bench-to-bedside research in cancer genetics will find this new edition indispensable as a reference and clinical tool.
Since the writing of the third edition was completed, chromosome aberrations have been reported on another 8,500 neoplasms and over 500 clinico-cytogenetic/molecular genetic association studies have been published. All of this information will be assessed in the new fourth edition. Especially important in the last 4-5 years has been the extensive information obtained using next-generation sequencing technologies. Until 2008, 453 gene fusions in cancer had been detected, whereas the number as of March 2013 is 1,485. Thus, over 1,000 new fusion genes relevant to tumorigenesis have been discovered since publication of the previous edition, and excerpts of these new studies – along with those of studies that are emerging now – will be incorporated in the chapters dealing with the various cancer types in the new edition.
