Genetic profiling of melanoma in routine diagnostics: assay performance and molecular characteristics in a consecutive series of 274 cases

A deeper understanding of melanoma biology has opened up new avenues for mechanistically informed therapies. However, data on the prevalence of druggable genetic lesions in melanoma are still conflicting and realworld performance data on high-throughput genetic profiling of melanoma cases using formalin fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue with variable tumour cellularity and quality are lacking. We retrospectively analysed targeted next-generation sequencing data of 274 consecutive melanoma samples obtained for routine di-agnostics between December 2013 and July 2017. Actionable mutations were detected in 197 cases (71.9%), of which activating BRAF (mostly p.V600E/K) and RAS (mostly p.Q61R/K) mutations occurred in 40.5% (n = 111) and 30.3% (n = 83) of cases, respectively. We identified driver mutations of the Triple-WT subgroup in 10.6% of cases (n = 29; 10 with activating KIT mutations). Median turnaround time was 5 working days with no dropouts. Tumour cellularity ranged from 5% to 95% and successful sequencing was possible at DNA concentrations as low as 0.03 ng/mu L (median 10.58 ng/mu L; range 0.03-209.05 ng/mu L). Fast, quality-controlled high-throughput genetic profiling of FFPE melanoma samples is feasible and provides a landscape of genetic aberrations in melanoma that is currently relevant in clinical practice and approximates TCGA subtypes.