next generation sequencing in clinical oncology: applications, challenges and promises: a review article

Background: the aim of this mini-review is to highlight the potential applications of next-generation sequencing technology to the field of clinical oncology with respect to genetic diagnosis, cancer classification, predictive biomarkers and personalized medicine. methods: scientific databases were searched to collect relative data. results: effective systematic analysis of whole-genome sequence and whole-exome sequence of tumors, targeted genome profiling, transcriptome sequencing and tumor- normal comparisons can be performed using ngs in order to diagnosis of several types of cancer. conclusion: ngs technology can be powerful enough to discover new and infrequent gene alterations, identify hereditary cancer mutation carriers and provide a reliable molecular portrait of wide range of cancers in a quick and cost-effective manner.