In this study, we evaluate the performance of a recently developed single allelic molecule counting methodology termed single molecule amplification and re-sequencing technology (SMART) [34] for the purpose of detecting and quantitating hot spot EGFR, KRAS, BRAF, ALK and TP53 mutations in NSCLC tumour specimens and define mutation profiles of early and advanced stage disease. Here, ALK is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.