The targeted therapies have become the new standard of care in oncology. Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has emerged as a valuable method for obtaining a personalized mutation information which is helpful to tailor the targeted or even personalized treatment by choosing effective drugs.

Because NGS can assess multiple genes in a single test, it eliminates the need to order multiple tests to identify the causative mutations for particular cancer. In addition, NGS can provide high sensitivity, enabling the detection of mutations present at as little as 5% of the DNA isolated from a tumor sample.

Targeted panels

Targeted sequencing by NGS is the most common method in molecular pathology and it focuses on specific genes commonly mutated in cancer. Oncology targeted panels sequencing is beneficial as it lowers cost (depending on panel size), increases the sequencing depth and easier data interpretation to find and validate pathogenic mutations in the particular gene panel for targeted and precision medicine.