J Pathol Transl Med.  2017 May;51(3):191-204. 10.4132/jptm.2017.03.14.

Good Laboratory Standards for Clinical Next-Generation Sequencing Cancer Panel Tests

• Kim J
• Park WY
• Kim NK
• Jang SJ
• Chun SM
• Sung CO
• Choi J
• Ko YH
• Choi YL
• Shim HS
• Won JK
• The Molecular Pathology Study Group of Korean Society of Pathologists

• KMID: 2392589
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4132/jptm.2017.03.14

Abstract

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has recently emerged as an essential component of personalized cancer medicine due to its high throughput and low per-base cost. However, no sufficient guidelines for implementing NGS as a clinical molecular pathology test are established in Korea. To ensure clinical grade quality without inhibiting adoption of NGS, a taskforce team assembled by the Korean Society of Pathologists developed laboratory guidelines for NGS cancer panel testing procedures and requirements for clinical implementation of NGS. This consensus standard proposal consists of two parts: laboratory guidelines and requirements for clinical NGS laboratories. The laboratory guidelines part addressed several important issues across multistep NGS cancer panel tests including choice of gene panel and platform, sample handling, nucleic acid management, sample identity tracking, library preparation, sequencing, analysis and reporting. Requirements for clinical NGS tests were summarized in terms of documentation, validation, quality management, and other required written policies. Together with appropriate pathologist training and international laboratory standards, these laboratory standards would help molecular pathology laboratories to successfully implement NGS cancer panel tests in clinic. In this way, the oncology community would be able to help patients to benefit more from personalized cancer medicine.

Keyword

High-throughput nucleotide sequencing; Molecular pathology; Neoplasms; Quality control; Practice guidelines as topic

MeSH Terms

Consensus
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Humans
Korea
Pathology, Molecular
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Quality Control

Figure

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  Fig. 1. Varying tissue conditions to be considered for next-generation sequencing analysis. (A) Gastric carcinoma with lymphoid stroma with acceptable tumor content although many intraepithelial lymphocytes are seen. (B) The same case as (A) but this area has unacceptable tumor content due to heavy lymphoid cell infiltration. (C) This poorly differentiated carcinoma shows extensive necrosis. (D) Mucinous adenocarcinoma of the colon shows a large area of extracellular mucin.

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