Clinical Validation of the Unparalleled Sensitivity of the Novel ADPS Technology-Based EGFR Mutation Assay in Patients with Operable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Recently, we developed allele-discriminating priming system (ADPS) technology. This method increases the sensitivity of conventional quantitative polymerase chain reaction up to 100 folds, with limit of detection, 0.01%, with reinforced specificity. This prospective study aimed to develop and validate the accuracy of ADPS™ EGFR Mutation Test Kit using clinical specimens.In total 189 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissues resected from patients with non-small cell lung cancer were used to perform a comparative evaluation of the ADPS™ EGFR Mutation Test Kit versus the cobas EGFR Mutation Test v2, which is the current gold standard. When the two methods had inconsistent results, NGS-based CancerSCAN was utilized as a referee.The overall agreement of the two methods was 97.4% (93.9%-99.1%); the positive percent agreement, 95.0% (88.7%-98.4%); and the negative percent agreement, 100.0% (95.9%-100.0%). EGFR mutations were detected at a frequency of 50.3% using the ADPS™ EGFR Mutation Test Kit and 52.9% using the cobas EGFR Mutation Test v2. There were 10 discrepant mutation calls between the two methods. CancerSCAN reproduced eight ADPS results. In two cases, mutant allele fraction (MAF) was ultra-low at 0.02% and 0.06%, which are significantly below the limit of detection of the cobas assay and CancerSCAN. Based on the EGFR genotyping by ADPS, the treatment options could be switched in five patients.The highly sensitive and specific ADPS™ EGFR Mutation Test Kit would be useful in detecting the patients who have lung cancer with EGFR mutation, and can benefit from the EGFR targeted therapy.