In-Silico Dissection Of Tumours And Its Application In The Identification Of The Tissue Of Origin Of Cancers Of Unknown Primary Site

We have used TCLASS (R) a multi-class tumour classifier that interprets gene expression microarray data and allows the identification of the primary site of CUPs. The classifier is implemented as a web-based tool and is an extremely simple and straightforward approach for molecular characterisation of tumour samples. We randomly selected 100 metastatic cancer samples from the large Expression Project for Oncology and show an accuracy of TCLASS of 88% on these samples. We conclude that TCLASS is a user friendly tool that will allow the molecular characterisation of tumour samples of unknown origin analysed with Affymetrix U133 Plus 2.0 GeneChips.