Related Experiment Video For hereditary cancer predisposition
Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Detecting Somatic Genetic Alterations in Tumor Specimens by Exon Capture and Massively Parallel Sequencing
Published on: October 18, 2013
Evolving Significance of Tumor-Normal Sequencing in Cancer Care
Diana Mandelker1, Ozge Ceyhan-Birsoy1
1Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Abstract:
Molecular tests assist at various stages of cancer patient management, including providing diagnosis, predicting prognosis, identifying therapeutic targets, and determining hereditary cancer risk. The current testing paradigm involves germline testing in a subset of patients determined to be at high risk for having a hereditary cancer syndrome, and tumor-only sequencing for treatment decisions in advanced cancer patients. A major limitation of tumor-only sequencing is its inability to distinguish germline versus somatic mutations. Tumor-normal sequencing has emerged as a comprehensive analysis for both hereditary cancer predisposition and somatic profiling. Here, we review recent studies involving tumor-normal sequencing, discuss its benefits in clinical care, challenges for its implementation, and novel insights it has provided regarding tumor biology and germline contribution to cancer.
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