Selected highlights of the 2019 Pulmonary Pathology Society Biennial Meeting
Since its inception 25 years ago, Pulmonary Pathology Society (https://www.pulmonarypath.org) has been continuously committed to support education, research and modern clinical practice in pulmonary pathology. In June 2019, Pulmonary Pathology Society Biennial Meeting took place in Dubrovnik (Croatia), the cultural UNESCO World Heritage Site. This unique meeting of experts in the field of rapidly changing thoracic pathology provided a unique opportunity to attendees from around the globe to expand the knowledge in diagnosis and management of patients with neoplastic and non-neoplastic diseases of the lung, pleura and mediastinum.
This series covers selected presented topics including the classification of lung adenocarcinomas and neuroendocrine tumors, challenges and barriers in testing for predictive biomarkers for targeted therapies and immunotherapies, and finally advances in the diagnosis and prognostication of pleural mesothelioma. Histologic classification of lung tumors evolved over the past decade, and the last WHO classification reflects clinical practice in the era of personalized medicine, especially in lung adenocarcinomas. Since implementation of the current WHO, it has become apparent that differences in histologic patterns of lung adenocarcinoma are prognostically important. The evolution of our understanding of invasion, particularly a clinical significance of airspace invasion, resulted in controversies and practical issues associated with the diagnosis of tumor spread throughout airspace. Advances in understanding of genomic events in neuroendocrine tumors are slowly, but progressively changing our approach to histologic and clinically more applicable classification. Despite our understanding of a link between genomic landscape of lung carcinomas and responses to targeted therapies, barriers to comprehensive biomarker testing despite available diagnostic assays still exist around the globe as illustrated on examples of Europe and Japan. Even more complex is the testing for predictive biomarkers of response to immune check point inhibitors. Finally, mesotheliomas have been traditionally difficult to diagnose, but advances in understanding of in molecular tumorigenesis of mesothelioma resulted in the implementation of such markers in diagnostic pathology practice.
The contributing authors for this series include thoracic pathology experts around the globe from Europe, Asia and North America. I hope you will find the selected topics interesting and informative. The upcoming PPS Biennial Meeting in Cork (Ireland) in June 2021 will give us the opportunity to discuss the 2020 WHO classification of thoracic tumors, lung pathology of COVID-19 and other hot topics.
Acknowledgments
Funding: None.
Footnote
Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Translational Lung Cancer Research for the series “Selected Highlights of the 2019 Pulmonary Pathology Society Biennial Meeting”. The article did not undergo external peer review.
Conflicts of Interest: The author has completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/tlcr-2019-pps-11). The series “Selected Highlights of the 2019 Pulmonary Pathology Society Biennial Meeting” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. SD served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Translational Lung Cancer Research. SD reports personal fees from Bayer, personal fees from Takeda, personal fees from Astra-Zeneca, personal fees from BMS, outside the submitted work. The author has no other conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
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