Dutch National Round Robin Trial on Plasma-Derived Circulating Cell-Free DNA Extraction Methods Routinely Used in Clinical Pathology for Molecular Tumor Profiling.

Background: Efficient recovery of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) depends on the quantity and quality of circulating cell-free DNA (ccfDNA). Here, we evaluated whether various ccfDNA extraction methods routinely applied in Dutch laboratories affect ccfDNA yield, ccfDNA integrity, and mutant ctDNA detection, using identical lung cancer patient-derived plasma samples.

Methods: Aliquots of 4 high-volume diagnostic leukapheresis plasma samples and one artificial reference plasma sample with predetermined tumor-derived mutations were distributed among 14 Dutch laboratories.