Droplet digital PCR as an alternative to FISH for MYCN amplification detection in human neuroblastoma FFPE samples

Dinesh Babu Somasundaram†,
Sheeja Aravindan†,
Zhongxin Yu,
Muralidharan Jayaraman,
Ngoc T. B. Tran,
Shibo Li,
Terence S. Herman and
Natarajan AravindanEmail author View ORCID ID profile

†Contributed equally

BMC Cancer201919:106

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-019-5306-0

Received: 13 December 2017
Accepted: 16 January 2019
Published: 28 January 2019

Open Peer Review reports

Abstract

Background

MYCN amplification directly correlates with the clinical course of neuroblastoma and poor patient survival, and serves as the most critical negative prognostic marker. Although fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) remains the gold standard for clinical diagnosis of MYCN status in neuroblastoma, its limitations warrant the identification of rapid, reliable, less technically challenging, and inexpensive alternate approaches.

Methods

In the present study, we examined the concordance of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR, in combination with immunohistochemistry, IHC) with FISH for MYCN detection in a panel of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) human neuroblastoma samples.

Results

In 112 neuroblastoma cases, ddPCR analysis demonstrated a 96–100% concordance with FISH. Consistently, IHC grading revealed 92–100% concordance with FISH. Comparing ddPCR with IHC, we observed a concordance of 95–98%.

Conclusions

The results demonstrate that MYCN amplification status in NB cases can be assessed with ddPCR, and suggest that ddPCR could be a technically less challenging method of detecting MYCN status in FFPE specimens. More importantly, these findings illustrate the concordance between FISH and ddPCR in the detection of MYCN status. Together, the results suggest that rapid, less technically demanding, and inexpensive ddPCR in conjunction with IHC could serve as an alternate approach to detect MYCN status in NB cases, with near-identical sensitivity to that of FISH.