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Updated: Mar 8, 2026

Detecting Somatic Genetic Alterations in Tumor Specimens by Exon Capture and Massively Parallel Sequencing
Published on: October 18, 2013
Assigning clinical meaning to somatic and germ-line whole-exome sequencing data in a prospective cancer precision
Arezou A Ghazani1,2,3, Nelly M Oliver1,2, Joseph P St Pierre2
1Center for Cancer Precision Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Purpose:
Implementing cancer precision medicine in the clinic requires assessing the therapeutic relevance of genomic alterations. A main challenge is the systematic interpretation of whole-exome sequencing (WES) data for clinical care.
Methods:
One hundred sixty-five adults with metastatic colorectal and lung adenocarcinomas were prospectively enrolled in the CanSeq study. WES was performed on DNA extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor biopsy samples and matched blood samples. Somatic and germ-line alterations were ranked according to therapeutic or clinical relevance. Results were interpreted using an integrated somatic and germ-line framework and returned in accordance with patient preferences.
Results:
At the time of this analysis, WES had been performed and results returned to the clinical team for 165 participants. Of 768 curated somatic alterations, only 31% were associated with clinical evidence and 69% with preclinical or inferential evidence. Of 806 curated germ-line variants, 5% were clinically relevant and 56% were classified as variants of unknown significance. The variant review and decision-making processes were effective when the process was changed from that of a Molecular Tumor Board to a protocol-based approach.
Conclusion:
The development of novel interpretive and decision-support tools that draw from scientific and clinical evidence will be crucial for the success of cancer precision medicine in WES studies.Genet Med advance online publication 26 January 2017.
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