Overlooking MMR deficiency in carriers of certain pathogenic variants by routine MSI and/or IHC testing in Lynch syndrome: Implications for a wider MMR deficiency testing.

Abstract

e16107 Background: DNA mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency occurs in both inherited/sporadic colorectal cancer (CRC) and endometrial cancer, but it may also be found in some other types of cancer. At present, MMR status testing in clinical practice is recommended for all CRC patients in order to identify those who should be offered genetic testing for the Lynch syndrome (LS), inform disease prognosis, and guide therapeutic management.There are two commonly accepted methods for MMR deficiency analysis, one based on the detection of microsatellite instability (MSI) by PCR and the other based on the detection of protein expression of the MMR genes using immunohistochemistry (IHC). The objective of this study was to evaluate the concordance between IHC and MSI in tumors from 18 LS patients with known pathogenic germline variants in MMR genes (MLH1, MSH2, PMS2 and MSH6). Methods: The MSI testing was performed using the five gene Bethesda panel (BAT25, BAT26, D2S123, D5S346, D17S250) while the IHC testing was done with the use of a standard 4 antibody panel (MLH1, MSH2, PMS2 and MSH6). Results: High concordance of the two methods was observed in 13/18 (72.2%) patients, mainly with disruptive mutations in the МLH1, MSH2 and PMS2 genes. Inconsistent results were obtained in 5/18 (28.8%) patients, of whom two had a positive result only with the use of the PCR method [carriers of MLH1 c.62C > T (p.Ala21Val) and c.244A > G (p.Thr82Ala) missense variants], other two had a positive result only with IHC [carriers of MSH6 c.3514dupA (p.Arg1172LysfsTer5) and c.2384T > C (p.Ile795Thr)] and one patient had normal results using both methods (carrier of MSH6 c.457+1G > T splice site mutation that results in exon 3 skipping). A positive predictive value of either MSI or IHC used as a single methods for screening was 83.3%, which indicates that a substantial number of cases with MMR tumors can be misdiagnosed by using only either one or the other of these two methods. Conclusions: These results have a potential implication not only for LS screening in CRC patients, but also for the detection of the MMR deficiency in patients with various tumors that might benefit from the checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy. The use of extended MSI NGS panels might provide a higher sensitivity for the detection of MMR deficiency compared to the standard MSI or ICH testing.