ABSTRACT
In 2013 the European Medicine Agency (EMA) restricted the indication for anti-EGFR targeted therapy to metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) with a wild-type RAS gene, increasing the need for reliable RAS mutation testing. We evaluated the completeness and reproducibility of RAS-testing in the Netherlands. From 17 laboratories, tumor DNA of the first 10 CRC cases tested in 2014 in routine clinical practice was re-tested by a reference laboratory using a custom next generation sequencing panel. In total, 171 CRC cases were re-evaluated for hotspot mutations in KRAS, NRAS and BRAF. Most laboratories had introduced complete RAS-testing (65%) and BRAF-testing (71%) by January 2014. The most employed method for all hotspot regions was Sanger sequencing (range 35.7 - 49.2%). The reference laboratory detected all mutations that had been found in the participating laboratories (n = 92), plus 10 additional mutations. This concerned three RAS and seven BRAF mutations that were missed due to incomplete testing of the participating laboratory. Overall, the concordance of tests performed by both the reference and participating laboratory was 100% (163/163; κ-static 1.0) for RAS and 100% (144/144; κ-static 1.0) for BRAF. Our study shows that RAS and BRAF mutations can be reproducibly assessed using a variety of testing methods.
Subject(s)
Colorectal Neoplasms/drug therapy , GTP Phosphohydrolases/genetics , Genetic Testing/methods , Membrane Proteins/genetics , Proto-Oncogene Proteins B-raf/genetics , Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras)/genetics , Antibodies, Monoclonal/therapeutic use , Antineoplastic Agents/therapeutic use , Base Sequence , Cetuximab/therapeutic use , Colorectal Neoplasms/diagnosis , Colorectal Neoplasms/genetics , ErbB Receptors/antagonists & inhibitors , High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods , Humans , Mutation/genetics , Netherlands , Panitumumab , Sequence Analysis, DNA/methodsABSTRACT
To test the diagnostic usefulness of allelic imbalance (AI) analysis based on routinely paraffin-embedded tissue, a series of 55 benign Spitz naevi, Spitz tumours with uncertain malignant potential, and malignant Spitzoid melanomas was investigated. Laser microdissection was used to ensure representative sampling of lesional cells and to investigate AI in separate tumour areas of four melanomas. AI was found in 2/12 (17%) typical Spitz naevi, 3/9 (33%) atypical Spitz tumours, 12/17 (65%) atypical Spitz tumours suspicious for melanoma and 15/17 (88%) Spitzoid melanomas. Additional immunohistochemical staining for Ki-67 using the MIB-1 antibody revealed positive deeply situated lesional cells in 0/6 (0%) Spitz naevi, 1/8 (13%) atypical Spitz tumours, 5/14 (35%) atypical Spitz tumours suspicious for melanoma, and 7/14 (50%) Spitzoid melanomas, respectively. Two of the melanomas examined for AI in separate tumour areas showed intratumoural genetic heterogeneity. In view of the finding of AI and deeply situated Ki-67 positive cells not only in melanomas but also in Spitz tumours with uncertain malignant potential, these approaches appear to have no direct diagnostic applicability for the distinction between benign and malignant Spitz tumours. Further molecular studies will be required to determine whether Spitz tumours and Spitzoid melanomas are unrelated entities, or whether there is a true spectrum of tumour progression.
