Rationale and Criteria

There are important criteria for biomarkers (a) the response should occur prior to the onset of overt disease symptomology, (b) for biomarkers of exposure, the response should demonstrate a level of specificity so as to allow the detection of single toxicants or classes of toxicants, and (c) for markers of toxicity or cellular stress the response should demonstrate a mechanistic correlation to intracellular changes which ultimately lead to overt toxicities (Fowler et al. 1984 Glaven et al. 1991). 

Several reports indicate that the synthesis and accumulation of stress proteins meet the criteria of sensitivity and specificity described above for biomarkers 

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The purpose of this chapter is to provide the rationale and criteria for combining certain neoplasms and to provide gnidelines for combining neoplasms and sites. 

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