Approved standard
Somatic variants in cancer-relevant genes are interpreted from multiple partially overlapping perspectives. When considered in discovery and translational research endeavors, it is important to determine if a particular variant observed in a gene of interest is oncogenic or not, as such knowledge provides the foundation on which targeted cancer treatment research is based. In contrast, clinical applications are dominated by diagnostic, prognostic, or therapeutic interpretations which in part also depends on underlying variant oncogenicity. The Association for Molecular Pathology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the College of American Pathologists (AMP/ASCO/CAP) have published structured somatic variant clinical interpretation guidelines which specifically address diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications. These guidelines have been well-received by the oncology community. Many variant knowledgebases, clinical laboratories/centers have adopted or are in the process of adopting these guidelines. The AMP/ASCO/CAP guidelines also describe different data types which are used to determine oncogenicity of a variant, such as: population frequency, functional data, computational predictions, segregation, and somatic frequency. A second collaborative effort created the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Scale for Clinical Actionability of molecular targets to provide a harmonized vocabulary that provides an evidence-based ranking system of molecular targets that supports their value as clinical targets.
However, neither of these clinical guideline systems provide systematic and comprehensive procedures for aggregating population frequency, functional data, computational predictions, segregation, and somatic frequency to consistently interpret variant oncogenicity, as has been published in the ACMG/AMP guidelines for classification of pathogenicity of germline variants. In order to address this unmet need for somatic variant oncogenicity classification procedures, the Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium (VICC, a GA4GH driver project) Knowledge Curation and Interpretation Standards (KCIS) working group (WG) has developed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with contributions from members of ClinGen Somatic Clinical Domain WG, and ClinGen Somatic/Germline variant curation WG using an approach similar to the ACMG/AMP germline pathogenicity guidelines to categorize evidence of oncogenicity as very strong, strong, moderate or supporting. This SOP enables consistent and comprehensive assessment of oncogenicity of somatic variants and the latest version may be found at the below link.
Current Version: 1.0