• melanoma
• colorectal cancer
• lung cancer

Several studies recently reported about the good performances of the Idylla molecular diagnostic platform (Biocartis, Mechelen, Belgium) as a fast and fully automated real-time quantitative PCR cartridge-based tool to diagnose oncogenic mutations in colorectal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma.1–3 The cost-effectiveness of implementing Idylla in molecular diagnostics laboratories remains to date uncertain and few investigated. Colling et al reported about the valuable performances of the new Idylla NRAS-BRAF-EGFRS492R Mutation Assay in combination with the Idylla KRAS Mutation Test in colorectal cancer. Nevertheless, taking into account the financial implications of using Idylla platform in the UK, Colling et al mentioned that using Idylla in an established molecular diagnostics laboratory may not be cost-effective in comparison with next-generation sequencing (NGS).1 Financial implications could be different from one healthcare system to another. Besides UK data reported by Colling et al, we considered the financial implications of using Idylla from a French healthcare system point of view. In this evaluation, we took into account the proposed prices of cancer-related molecular tests in France, the reported excellent performances of Idylla platform in detecting panels of KRAS, NRAS, BRAF and EGFR mutations (see www.biocartis.com for mutation panels for different Idylla cartridges) and the frequencies of these Idylla-detectable mutations encountered about colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma tumour samples in our daily practice in patients with advanced cancers.1–5

In France, the price of an NGS analysis using a gene-panel approach is proposed at €882.9. This approach could be used to search for KRAS, NRAS and BRAF mutations in colorectal cancers, EGFR and KRAS mutations in lung cancers or BRAF and NRAS mutations in melanomas with the same price.4

In …