GeneTrails® – Colorectal Cancer Panel

The NCCN Guidelines for colorectal cancer recommend that molecular testing be performed on all cases of metastatic disease. In the most recent update, it is now recommended that testing be expanded beyond KRAS exon 2, to include other KRAS exons, as well as NRAS and BRAF.1 Several large clinical trials have confirmed that tumors harboring a KRAS or NRAS mutation do not respond well to EGFR-targeted therapies (cetuximab, panitumumab). Furthermore, the presence of a BRAF mutation is associated with aggressive disease as well as a lack of response to these therapies.

The Knight Diagnostic Laboratories is pleased to announce the GeneTrails® Colorectal Cancer Panel, which is based on next-generation DNA sequencing. The panel covers all KRAS exons, including rare mutations at codons 61, 117 and 146, as well as NRAS and BRAF. The panel requires very little input DNA, and can be performed on paraffin-embedded samples from small biopsies or even peritoneal fluid cell blocks. The sensitivity of the sequencing is approximately 3% mutant allele, which allows the analysis of samples with low tumor content.

References

  1. NCCN Guidelines, Colon Cancer Version 2.2015. www.nccn.org
  2. Bekaii-Saab T. Moving Forward With Expanding to an “All-RAS Mutational Analysis” in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Beyond KRAS Mutations. J Natl Compr Canc Netw 2014;12:299-300.

For further information, see the GeneTrails Colorectal Cancer Mutation Panel test information page.

To order this test, contact Knight Diagnostic Laboratories Client Services with a requisition form.

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The Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University is a pioneer in the field of precision cancer medicine. The institute's director, Brian Druker, M.D., helped prove it was possible to shut down just the cells that enable cancer to grow. This breakthrough has made once-fatal forms of the disease manageable and transformed how cancer is treated. The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center between Sacramento and Seattle – an honor earned only by the nation's top cancer centers. It is headquarters for one of the National Cancer Institute's largest research collaboratives, SWOG, in addition to offering the latest treatments and technologies as well as hundreds of research studies and clinical trials.

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