Patrizia Chiusolo

Introduction Agarose gel‐based conventional and real‐time allele‐specific polymerase chain reaction (AS‐PCR) assays are currently used for sensitive detection and quantification of MYD88 L265P mutation. Visual inspection of an agarose gel can often be ambiguous. We propose a new allele‐specific quantification PCR (AS‐qPCR) assay, PlentiPlex™ MYD 88 Waldenström lymphoma qPCR assay, that uses Intercalating Nucleic Acid (INA®) technology for increased affinity and specificity. Methods This study compares PlentiPlex™ MYD 88 Waldenström lymphoma qPCR assay with conventional AS‐PCR. We included a total of 102 peripheral and bone marrow blood samples from 94 patients with a lymphoproliferative disorder. Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) was used as a third method in case of discrepancy. Results A positive percent agreement of 100% (95% CI 0.92–1.0) and a negative percent agreement of 98% (95% CI 0.90–1.0) were found between the conventional AS‐PCR and the AS‐qPCR methods. Including the ddPCR results to validate the discrepant cases, the sensitivity and specificity of PlentiPlex™ MYD 88 Waldenström lymphoma qPCR Assay were 1.0 (95% CI 0.97–1.0) and 1.0 (95% CI 0.96–1.0), respectively. Conclusion Our data demonstrate that PlentiPlex™ MYD 88 Waldenström lymphoma qPCR assay is a fast, highly sensitive, and specific method for the detection of MYD 88 L265P compared with conventional AS‐PCR.