Lung Cancer Gene Fusion Assays using NanoString® nCounter® Technology

Personalized medicine has beomce a paradigm in lung cancer management; ~ 25–30% of advanced lung cancer patients could benefit from a targeted therapy. Several guidelines currently endorse routine genomic testing of several druggable oncogenic biomarkers—EGFR, ALK, ROS1, and BRAF—in new metastatic non-squamous NSCLC patients, while a number of other emerging molecular targets, such as RET and NTRK gene rearrangements, MET exon 14 skipping mutations (METex14), and activating HER2 or KRAS mutations are likely approaching clinical practice. Consequently, more extensive analysis such as multiplexed DNA/RNA profiling platforms are increasingly required for comprehensive biomarker testing of lung cancer. We validated the sensitivity of the NanoString® nCounter® technology to identify driver mutations (METex14) and gene fusions (ALK, ROS1, RET1, NTRK) in lung cancer patients. Our work demonstrates that embedding two DNA and RNA (using the nCounter) multiplexing technologies early into the routine workup of patients with advanced NSCLC is feasible and useful to identify distinct subsets of patients amenable to targeted therapies, resulting in significantly improved outcomes.

Research Use Only. Not for use in Diagnostic Procedures.