Rapid targeted mutational analysis of human tumours: a clinical platform to guide personalized cancer medicine.

Targeted cancer therapy requires the rapid and accurate identification of genetic abnormalities predictive of therapeutic response. We sought to develop a high-throughput genotyping platform that would allow prospective patient selection to the best available therapies, and that could readily and inexpensively be adopted by most clinical laboratories. We developed a highly sensitive multiplexed clinical assay that performs very well with nucleic acid derived from formalin fixation and paraffin embedding (FFPE) tissue, and tests for 120 previously described mutations in 13 cancer genes.

Uterine tumors resembling ovarian sex cord tumors (UTROSCT) lack the JAZF1-JJAZ1 translocation frequently seen in endometrial stromal tumors.

Uterine tumor resembling ovarian sex cord tumor (UTROSCT) is a rare uterine neoplasm composed predominantly or exclusively of cells which resemble those seen in sex cord tumors of the ovary. Since its initial morphologic description, it has been unclear whether UTROSCT represents a variant within the spectrum of endometrial stromal tumors (ESTs), which may rarely exhibit areas of sex cord-like differentiation, or whether it is a distinct uterine neoplasm unrelated to ESTs. Recently, several studies have revealed a recurrent t(7;17) translocation resulting in a JAZF1-JJAZ1 gene fusion in over 60% of EST and its variants, including 2 out of 4 endometrial stromal tumors with sex cord-like elements (ESTSCLE).

In situ genetic analysis of cellular chimerism.

Copy number variants are a recently discovered source of large-scale genomic diversity present in all individuals. We capitalize on these inherent genomic differences, focusing on deletion polymorphisms, to develop informative fluorescence in situ hybridization probes with the ability to unequivocally distinguish between donor and recipient cells in situ. These probes are accurate, specific, highly polymorphic and, notably, can be used to assign genetic identity in situ in a completely gender-independent fashion.

First-line gefitinib in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer harboring somatic EGFR mutations.

Purpose: Somatic mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) correlate with increased response in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). The multicenter iTARGET trial prospectively examined first-line gefitinib in advanced NSCLC patients harboring EGFR mutations and explored the significance of EGFR mutation subtypes and TKI resistance mechanisms.

Patients And Methods: Chemotherapy-naïve patients with advanced NSCLC with >or= 1 clinical characteristic associated with EGFR mutations underwent direct DNA sequencing of tumor tissue EGFR exons 18 to 21.

Genomic alterations of anaplastic lymphoma kinase may sensitize tumors to anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitors.

Selective kinase inhibitors have had a substantial impact on the field of medical oncology. Whereas these agents can elicit dramatic clinical responses in some settings, their activity is generally limited to a subset of treated patients whose tumor cells harbor a specific genetic lesion. We have established an automated platform for examining the sensitivity to various molecularly targeted inhibitors across a large panel of human tumor-derived cell lines to identify additional genotype-correlated responses that may be clinically relevant.