Newborn screening with targeted sequencing:a multicenter investigation and a pilot clinical study in China

Different newborn screening(NBS) programs have been practiced in many countries since the 1960 s. It is of considerable interest whether next-generation sequencing is applicable in NBS. We have developed a panel of 465 causative genes for 596 early-onset, relatively high incidence, and potentially actionable severe inherited diseases in our Newborn Screening with Targeted Sequencing(NESTS) program to screen 11,484 babies in 8 Women and Children’s hospitals nationwide in China retrospectively. The positive rate from preliminary screening of NESTS was 7.85%(902/11,484). With 45.89%(414/902) follow-up of preliminary positive cases, the overall clinically confirmative diagnosis rate of monogenic disorders was 12.07%(50/414), estimating an average of 0.95%(7.85% × 12.07%) clinical diagnosis rate, suggesting that monogenic disorders account for a considerable proportion of birth defects. The disease/gene spectrum varied in different regions of China. NESTS was implemented in a hospital by screening 3923 newborns to evaluate its clinical application. The turn-around time of a primary report, including the sequencing period of < 7 days, was within 11 days by our automatic interpretation pipeline. Our results suggest that NESTS is feasible and cost-effective as a first-tier NBS program, which will change the status of current clinical practice of NBS in China.

Correlation between TERT C228T and clinic-pathological features in pediatric papillary thyroid carcinoma

The aims of the present study were to reveal the prevalence of the TERT C228 T mutation in pediatric papillary thyroid carcinoma(PPTC) and to further investigate the role of the TERT C228 T mutation in PPTC. We also tested another TERT mutation, TERT C250 T, although this was not detected in PPTC patients. In this study, 48 patients with PPTC(41 with classic PPTC) were enrolled. DNA was extracted from PPTC tissues and TERT C228 T mutation analysis was performed. Chi-squared analysis,Fisher’s exact test, and a t-test were applied to test the significance of differences. The TERT C228 T mutation presented in 13(27.1%) of the 48 PPTC patients and 10(24.4%) of the 41 classical PPTC patients. There were significant differences between PPTC patients with the TERT C228 T mutation and those without in terms of modified radical neck dissection, multifocality,capsular invasion, extrathyroidal invasion, and American Joint Committee on Cancer(AJCC) tumor stage(P<0.05). In classical PPTC, there were additional significant differences in other clinic-pathological features, such as AJCC nodal stage(P=0.009)and American Thyroid Association(ATA) PPTC stage(P=0.021) between patients with and without the TERT C228 T mutation.These findings indicate that the TERT C228 T mutation is significantly correlated with certain aggressive clinic-pathological features of PPTC.

Correlation between BRAF^(V600E) mutation and clinicopathological features in pediatric papillary thyroid carcinoma

In adults, the presence of the BRAF^(V600E) mutation in papillary thyroid cancer(PTC) has been demonstrated to be strongly associated with aggressive cancer-cell characteristics and poor patient prognosis. In contrast, the frequency of this mutation in pediatric PTC has undergone limited study, and the few available estimates range from 0 to 63%. Furthermore, the role of the BRAF^(V600E) mutation in pediatric PTC is controversial; thus, the present study aimed to investigate the prevalence and role of the BRAF^(V600E) mutation in48 pediatric patients with PTC, aged 3–13 years. Of these patients, 41 were diagnosed with classic PTC, five were found to have a follicular variant of PTC, and two to exhibit a diffuse sclerosing PTC variant. The BRAF^(V600E) mutation was identified to be present in 35.4% of the 48 analyzed patients, and in 41.5% of the patients diagnosed with classical PTC. Furthermore, the presence of the BRAF^(V600E) mutation was found to be associated with a patient age at diagnosis of less than ten years(P=0.011), the performance of a thyroidectomy(P=0.03), exhibited tumor multifocality(P=0.02) and/or extra-thyroidal invasion(P=0.003), and both a low MACIS(Metastases, Age, Completeness of resection, Invasion, Size)(P=0.036) and AMES(Age, Metastasis, Extent of tumor,Size)(P=0.001)score. Together, these data suggest that the presence of the BRAF^(V600E) mutation may be negatively correlated with partial aggressive clinicopathological features of pediatric PTC.

Pediatric cancer surveillance in China:A hospital-based introduction

Background In recent years,increasing numbers of families have been affected by childhood cancer.According to data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer(IARC)of the World Health Organization,approximately 279000 new cases of cancer were predicted in children and adolescents aged 0–19 years worldwide in 2020.The global incidence of childhood cancer is 10.9 per 100000(global standard rate)and the mortality rate is 4.2 per 100000.1 According to data from the China National Cancer Center,the incidences of cancer in 2017 were 9.9 per 100000 in children aged 0–14 years and 11.5 per 100000 in adolescents aged 15–19 years.2 There are estimated to be approximately 22000 new cases of childhood cancer in China each year,and the incidence of malignant tumors in children aged 0–14 years has increased by 2.5%annually in the past decade.