Liquid Biopsies

The latest research on circulating tumor DNA and circulating tumor cells isolated through liquid biopsies is revolutionizing cancer care by enabling early detection, treatment monitoring, and personalized medicine strategies.

Liquid biopsy is offering a noninvasive, real-time, and personalized approach to tumor assessment, and is already revolutionizing the field of clinical oncology.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, David Oubre, MD discussed the use of liquid biopsy to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers in patients with non–small cell lung cancer. He also explained the results and implications of the INSIGHT study.

In patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, an investigational liquid biopsy was more favorable compared with needle biopsies, a study shows.

During a Targeted Oncology Case-Based Roundtable event, Grace K. Dy, MD and 9 other physicians discussed molecular testing for patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

A novel liquid biopsy test for the detection of lymph node metastasis in individuals with high-risk submucosal colorectal carcinoma has been developed.

Significantly more genomic alterations can be detected with the Guardant360 liquid biopsy assay when used prior to tissue testing, results of a prospective study recently showed.

Target capture next-generation sequencing, MassARRAY, and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction all effectively detected low frequency somatic epidermal growth factor receptor mutations in cell-free circulating tumor DNA from individuals with non–small cell lung cancer , according to a presentation at the AMP 2020 Annual Meeting and Expo.

The FDA has granted approval to the FoundationOne Liquid CDx as a companion diagnostic indicated for the to identify patients who may derive benefit from treatment with 3 FDA-approved targeted therapies, including alpelisib, rucaparib, and alectinib.

The FDA has granted approval to FoundationOne Liquid CDx, a comprehensive liquid biopsy assay for all solid tumors with multiple companion diagnostic indications.

The application of liquid biopsies is becoming more common in the field of non–small cell lung cancer as the utility of liquid biopsies in the detection of key biomarkers continues to be confirmed through clinical trials.

“Accurately identifying patients with high-grade UTUC is critical, as the disease progression can be deadly and the standard treatment – removal of ureter and kidney – leads to major morbidity."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Xiuning Le, MD, PhD, discussed the results of the phase II VISION study, which evaluated tepotinib in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and harbor the MET exon 14 skipping mutation. She also highlighted the role of liquid biopsy in this space.

"The launch of these 3 liquid biopsy assays exemplifies our commitment to providing the most comprehensive oncology menu for our clients as a one-stop-shop for their testing needs."

"Liquid biopsy is useful at any time when a physician needs genomic information about their patient’s cancer in order to make a treatment decision."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Steve A. Soper, PhD, discussed microfluidic platforms for use in isolating circulating leukemia cells and plasma cells in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia.

The first liquid biopsy assay, a blood test, to detect over 50 types of cancer has been developed and is able to identify in which part of the body that the cancer originated in, based on findings from a prospective multicenter case-control observational trial, the CCGA study published in Annals of Oncology. The test also identified cancer prior to symptoms in most patients, according to a press release.

Use of the liquid biopsy assay MSK-ACCESS has led to detection of actionable genetic variants in 40% of tumor samples, offering an attrac­tive alternative to invasive tumor biopsies in patients with no available tissue for testing. 

Liquid biopsy results that identify DNA damage repair genes in prostate cancer may be a useful tool in clinical-deci­sion making, espe­cially because these genes can elucidate therapeutic vulnera­bilities that could be exploited by current treatments.

Circulating free DNA in the blood may be a more effective way to measure disease in patients with breast cancer and track the progression of the disease, according to a study from researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

High volumes of mutations observed through liquid biopsies may be associated with an improvement in progression-free survival  and clinical benefit after first-line standard-of-care pembrolizumab-based therapy in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, according to findings from a prospective biomarker trial conducted by investigators at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center, which were published in Clinical Cancer Research.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, John Simmons, PhD, discussed the potential role of liquid biopsy assays in predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for patients with cancer. He also highlighted other liquid biopsy assays that are in development for detecting MSI.

In a presentation describing the utility of circulating tumor DNA liquid biopsy assays at the 14th Annual New York Lung Cancers Symposium, Bob T. Li, MD, MPH, said that plasma genotyping demsonstrates practice-changing potential in non–small cell lung cancer.

Among patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome who completed myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the predictive utility of testing circulating tumor DNA was comparable with that of mutation persistence evaluation in matched bone marrow samples, according to a study published recently in Blood.