CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
January 2014—Transgenomic in October announced the results of a research collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center employing the company’s ICE COLD-PCR platform. This interim analysis demonstrates that in a high percentage of patients with advanced cancers, the same genetic mutations were detected in cell-free DNA present in the blood as were originally found in primary tumors. In a subset of patients followed over time, detection of mutations in cfDNA correlated with response to therapy or disease progression.
Using ICE COLD-PCR technology, investigators analyzed blood plasma samples collected from patients (n=60) with colorectal cancer, melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and several other cancers, and compared them with corresponding samples taken from tumor tissue. Results demonstrated a 79 percent concordance between the mutational status detected by analysis of cfDNA and tumor tissue for patients whose tumors carried KRAS gene mutations and a 68 percent concordance for patients whose tumors carried BRAF gene mutations.
The study, “BRAF and KRAS mutation testing in cell-free DNA and circulating tumor cells from blood of patients with metastatic cancers” (Abstract No. C203), was presented by Filip Janku, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and lead author of the presentation, at the October AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.
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