Clinical Exome Reanalysis: Current Practice and Beyond

Novel gene-disease discoveries, rapid advancements in technology, and improved bioinformatics tools all have the potential to yield additional molecular diagnoses through the reanalysis of exome sequencing data. Collaborations between clinical laboratories, ordering physicians, and researchers are also driving factors that can contribute to these new insights. Automation in ongoing natural history collection, evolving phenotype updates, advancements in processing next-generation sequencing data, and up-to-date variant-gene-disease databases are increasingly needed for systematic exome reanalysis. Here, we review some of the advantages and challenges for clinician-initiated and laboratory-initiated exome reanalysis, and we propose a model for the future that could potentially maximize the clinical utility of exome reanalysis by integrating information from electronic medical records and knowledge databases into routine clinical workflows.