Significance of histopathological and molecular genetics investigations on the diagnosis and prognosis of astrocytic and oligodendroglial glioma

Histopathological evaluation should remain the chief support of brain tumor classification. Nevertheless, molecular genetic studies can play an important part in standardizing tumor categorization and resolving difficult diagnostic problems. These studies can be used to subdivide GBM into biologically distinct subsets and are currently being used to predict therapeutic response and survival in patients with anaplastic oligodendroglioma.