Singapore (January 13, 2015) – Vela Diagnostics announced today the CE-IVD launch of the Sentosa^® SQ Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) Panel.¹ This is the next in a series of NGS oncology panels from Vela Diagnostics, which recently launched the CE-IVD Sentosa^® SQ Melanoma Panel.¹

Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as colon, rectal or bowel cancer, is the third most common type of cancer globally and makes up about 10% of all cases.² In 2012, 1.4 million new cases were detected and 694,000 deaths were caused by CRC.²

Detecting mutations in specific genes helps to assess the prognosis and management of the patient. The management can include surgery, radiation and medical treatment, including targeted treatment. The Sentosa^® SQ CRC NGS Panel supports clinical decision-making by identifying hot spot mutations and sequence variants in target regions. The Sentosa^® SQ CRC NGS Panel is able to simultaneously detect 112 clinically relevant hot spot mutations in 11 genes; it exhibits a Limit of Detection (LOD) of 5% with minimal DNA concentration of 5 ng per library. The Sentosa^® SQ CRC NGS Panel displays a reproducibility of 99.89% (95% CI: 99.82% - 99.93%). 

The Sentosa^® SQ CRC NGS Panel is designed for use on the automated Sentosa^® NGS workflow, which enables quick turn-around time.  The workflow comprises two systems: the Sentosa^® SX101 automated pipetting system enabling automated DNA extraction and library set-up, and the NGS system. The NGS system consists of the Sentosa^® ST401 instruments that provide an automated solution for template preparation and enrichments, the Sentosa^® SQ301 sequencer and server, as well as the Sentosa^® SQ Reporter for efficient data analysis and report generation.