ALK evaluation in the world of multiplex testing: Network Genomic Medicine (NGM): The Cologne model for implementing personalised oncology

Abstract

Comprehensive molecular genotyping of lung cancers has become a key requirement for guiding therapeutic decisions. As a paradigm model of implementing next-generation comprehensive diagnostics, Network Genomic Medicine (NGM)has established central diagnostic and clinical trial platforms for centralised testing and decentralised personalised treatmentin clinical practice. Here, we describe the structures of the NGM network and give a summary of technologies toidentify patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion-positive lung adenocarcinomas. As unifying test platformswill become increasingly important for delivering reliable, quick and affordable tests, the NGM diagnostic platform iscurrently implementing a comprehensive hybrid capture-based parallel sequencing pan-cancer assay.