Table 3.

Opportunities for improvement of next-generation sequencing (NGS) with blood samples containing circulating free (cf)—nucleic acids at diagnosis of non-small cell lung carcinoma.

Optimize the pre-analytical steps using new buffers that limit the degradation of circulating blood hematological cells

Reduce the time between veinule puncture and centrifugation of the blood

Develop new procedures and reagents to increase the amount of nucleic acid extracted from plasma

Increase the number of multicenter studies that compare the different gene panels used for NGS with cf-nucleic acid

Integrate NGS with cf-nucleic acid and from other blood components such as circulating tumor cells and/or circulating extracellular vesicles

Reduce the volume of the samples of plasma for NGS analyses with cf-nucleic acid for routine clinical practice