Patent ID: 9495515
Filing Date: 2016-11-15
CPC Classification: C12Q,G01N,G06N,G16B,G16H

Claim Text:
1. A method of diagnosing thyroid cancer, comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a biological sample comprising gene expression products, wherein the biological sample comprises a fine needle aspirate (FNA) of thyroid tissue from a subject; (b) assaying by sequencing, array hybridization, or nucleic acid amplification the gene expression products of the biological sample, which gene expression products are associated with a benign or malignant thyroid condition; (c) comparing to an amount in a control sample, an amount of one or more gene expression products in the biological sample to determine one or more differential gene expression product levels between the biological sample and the control sample; (d) classifying the biological sample by inputting the one or more differential gene expression product levels to a trained algorithm, wherein the trained algorithm classifies biological samples as negative for thyroid cancer at an accuracy of at least 90%, wherein a plurality of technical factor variables is removed from data based on one or more of the differential gene expression product levels and normalized prior to or during classification, wherein the plurality of technical factor variables is selected from the group consisting of a collection source, a collection method, a collection media, a RNA integrity number, a whole transcriptome amplification yield, a sense strand yield, a hybridization site, a hybridization quality and an experiment batch; and (e) outputting a report on a computer screen that identifies the biological sample as negative for the thyroid cancer if the trained algorithm classifies the biological sample as negative for the thyroid cancer at a specified confidence level.