Qiagen N.V. has launched enhancements in its Qiagen Clinical Insight (QCI) bioinformatics software automating the AMP/ASCO/CAP Standards and Guidelines for the Interpretation and Reporting of Sequence Variants in Cancer, advancing precision medicine with the first solution to offer molecular pathologists critical information needed to guide oncologists’ treatment decisions.
Leading oncology and pathology groups published the guidelines in January 2017 in response to growing clinical implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for genetic profiling of cancers. Qiagen’s QCI-Interpret software integrates the consensus standards with a comprehensive biomedical knowledge base on potential treatments and clinical trials, guiding the selection of treatments based on the findings from each patient’s genomic testing and diagnosis. Qiagen is launching the QCI enhancements this week at the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) 2017 Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“As cancer genomics expands into routine clinical care, an exponential increase in next-generation sequencing studies and clinical trials makes it hard for laboratories to keep up. We have integrated the AMP/ASCO/CAP guidelines with our deep Qiagen Knowledge Base to enable any molecular pathology lab to quickly and confidently report both the clinical relevance of somatic variants and the associated treatment options and clinical trials available to the oncologist,” said Ramon Felciano, chief technology officer and vice president, Strategy & Technology, Qiagen Bioinformatics. “With the Association for Molecular Pathology taking the lead in cancer genomics guidelines, we’re pleased to introduce this expansion of our QCI platform at the AMP 2017 conference. QCI delivers the insights to advance precision medicine.”
The guidelines were developed by a multidisciplinary working group from AMP with participation by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP). The guidelines establish a four-tiered system based on clinical evidence from drug labels, guidelines, and peer-reviewed publications for categorizing the clinical significance of somatic sequence variants based on evidence of their impact on cancer care.
The QCI-Interpret software integrates the AMP/ASCO/CAP tiering system into the Qiagen Knowledge Base, a vast and expertly-curated repository of medical and scientific literature, including up-to-date information on approved drugs and clinical trials. By detailing supporting evidence for potential treatments and clinical trials, QCI-Interpret offers full transparency to clinical actionability and pathogenicity assessments. Each piece of supporting clinical evidence is rated and linked to the source publication for further study if needed. Laboratories may also change variant assessments based on their experience, tracking all changes in compliance with standard clinical procedures. QCI-Interpret is cloud-based, so labs can immediately access clinical and scientific evidence that is constantly updated by Qiagen’s M.D. and Ph.D. staff.