Belay Announces Update to NCCN Guidelines to Recommend CSF-based Genomic Profiling in Biopsy Infeasible High-Grade Gliomas

CHICAGO, June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) regarding characterization and treatment of central nervous system (CNS) cancers were very recently updated and have expanded the recommendations for using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-based molecular tumor profiling to include inoperable high-grade gliomas (HGG) and glioblastomas (GBM). This recommendation applies irrespective of the reason for inoperability (patient health or refusal, or mass location), and especially in cases when molecular profiling is required for a diagnosis and/or determining appropriate therapy. This new consideration places surgery/biopsy-infeasible HGG and GBM on a growing list of CNS malignancies for which CSF based testing is now recommended. Previous iterations of the NCCN Guidelines recommended CSF molecular testing for cases of medulloblastoma, spinal and cranial ependymoma, CNS lymphoma, and leptomeningeal metastasis in adult patients.

This update is now the second NCCN Guidelines update in consecutive years in which the application of CSF-based molecular profiling has expanded to include new CNS malignancies. The new expansion also makes it clear that characterization in CNS cancer is evolving rapidly to include novel tools. It also serves to keep driving a much-needed paradigm shift to align medicine in this field with the advances made in solid tumors, which have already adopted liquid biopsy as a standard for testing and care. As adoption of CSF comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) increases across the field of CNS oncology, more studies and literature demonstrating clinical utility will follow, likely driving further expansion of the recommended applications of CSF-based molecular profiling in future NCCN Guidelines. Liquid biopsy using CSF allows tumor profiling to improve care, especially for inoperable patients who would otherwise have been treated empirically guided by more limited methods like imaging and CSF cytology. The advent of CSF-CGP has tremendous potential to improve the care for patients with these challenging and devastating diseases.

Belay Diagnostics offers the only purpose-built suite of validated, CSF-specific tests for CNS malignancies, Summit 2.0, Ascent, and Vantage, each designed for exceptional performance in CSF. Each of the three tests in Belay's current offerings have complete, relevant, and peer-reviewed validation studies with transparent, verifiable performance data. This includes the full molecular validation of their tests, and the extensive clinical validation of their flagship comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) panel Summit 2.0 against the gold-standard of tissue, which demonstrated an exceptional 96% clinical sensitivity and a 98% clinical specificity as published in Cancers (Khurana et al., 2026). Belay Diagnostics' portfolio of CSF-based testing also fulfills the NCCN's new recommendation for CNS tumor pathologic characterization to be performed by multi-gene panel testing, in order to assay multiple biomarkers with a single test. Each of Belay's three tests can be performed on a single CSF specimen, and they are available today for patients with CNS malignancies, including those for whom biopsy is not an option. Learn more at belaydiagnostics.com.

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SOURCE Belay Diagnostics