A sensitive and high throughput TaqMan-based reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay efficiently discriminates ALK rearrangement from overexpression for lung cancer FFPE specimens

摘要

Objectives: ALK fusion gene is an oncogenic driver in lung cancer with low prevalence, which can be ameliorated by crizotinib. Currently, ALK fusion gene can be diagnosed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC), but inconstistnt results between the two methods are encountered regularly. To make the ALK fusion gene screening more efficient and to provide a simple solution to clarify the discrepancy between FISH and IHC results, a sensitive TagMan-based reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay was established.