Veracyte announced Wednesday that its thyroid cancer genomic test showed high sensitivity and specificity in detecting medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) among preoperative thyroid nodule fine needle aspiration biopsy samples in a study published online in Thyroid.
The results suggest that the firm's RNA sequencing-based medullary thyroid cancer classifier, Afirma, may enable more timely diagnosis of this rare, aggressive form of thyroid cancer, Veracyte said.
To assess the test, investigators evaluated a blinded cohort of 211 preoperative thyroid fine needle aspiration samples with subsequent surgical pathology, including 21 MTC samples and 190 non-MTC samples that included both benign and malignant thyroid lesions. The classifier accurately identified all 21 MTC cases with 100% sensitivity and all 190 non-MTC cases with 100% specificity.
