KRAS status is now a mandatory prerequisite in order to treat metastatic 
colorectal patients with anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) 
antibodies, such as cetuximab or panitumumab. KRAS mutations are unambiguously 
linked to a lack of response to these targeted therapies. Because of the major 
clinical impact of KRAS status, an observational study has been designed in 
France, focusing on the ability to perform KRAS testing between october 2008 and 
october 2009. The study was retro-prospective, national, multicentric, 
descriptive and non interventional, concerning public and private institutions 
and KRAS non mutated patients treated with panitumumab. The primary objective of 
this study was to evaluate delays between the genotyping KRAS request and the 
result. Secondary objectives were: type of genotyping requests 
(systematic/prospective or specific/retrospective), prevalence of the different 
genotyping techniques, delays between the genotyping KRAS request and therapy 
with panitumumab. Overall, 329 patients from 66 centres have been included. 
About half of them belonged to private institutions. The results were obtained 
with a mean delay of 33.4 ± 39.8 days (CI 95%: [28.8; 37.9] days; median: 24 
days). Most of KRAS genotyping tests were performed on specific requests 
(65.3%), from a primary tumor (80.4%) and from a surgical specimen (73.9%). The 
more frequently used techniques for KRAS genotyping were: real time PCR (36.2%), 
sequencing (24.8%) and pyrosequencing (13.2%). This study emphasizes the 
functionality of cancer molecular genetic platforms dedicated to KRAS 
genotyping, which allow the use of molecular predictive biomarkers by different 
medical institutions. This study also underlines the broad spectrum of 
genotyping techniques (no consensus). The delays of response are still longer 
than expected but might be improved by optimizing the procedures.