KRAS, NRAS and BRAFV600E mutations determine resistance to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibodies in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). The phase II CAPRI 2-GOIM trial investigates the efficacy safety of biomarker-driven, cetuximab-based therapies three sequential treatment lines mCRC patients. Patients RAS/BRAFV600E wild type (WT) mCRC, as determined...

Breast cancer affects 12% of females in the United States and is the leading cause of cancer death in the female population. Personalized therapy is being used in clinical practice to treat breast cancer based on tumor molecular profiling, which can be obtained from tissue biopsy or plasma liquid biopsy as circulating tumor deoxyribonucleic acid (ctDNA). The available ctDNA tests provide a non-...

Recent findings The value of CTCs as a prognostic biomarker is now well validated in breast, colon, and prostate cancer, but no trial has yet demonstrated that modifying treatment according to CTCs is superior to standard of care. Ongoing trials are addressing the clinical utility of CTCs. Moreover, there is emerging evidence about the potential of CTCs as a tumor tissue source to analyze prote...

Identification and quantification of somatic alterations in plasma-derived, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is gaining traction as a non-invasive and cost effective method of disease monitoring in cancer patients, particularly to evaluate response to treatment and monitor for disease recurrence. To our knowledge, genetic analysis of ctDNA in osteosarcoma has not yet been studied. To determine whe...

Examination of tumor molecular characteristics by liquid biopsy is likely to greatly influence personalized cancer patient management. Analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and tumor-derived exosomes, all collectively referred to as "liquid biopsies," are not only a modality to monitor treatment efficacy, disease progression, and emerging therapy resistance ...

BACKGROUND The ability to undertake molecular analysis to inform on prognosis and predictors of response to therapy is limited by accessibility of tissue. Measurement of total circulating free DNA (cfDNA) or circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in peripheral blood may allow easier access to tumor material and help to predict clinical outcomes. METHODS A systematic review of electronic databases iden...

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is now widely investigated as a biomarker in translational and clinical research (1). However, despite the growing field of clinical applications, the biology of ctDNA remains unclear. In trying to learn about the origins of ctDNA, nature provides us with very few clues. One of the important accessible parameters is the size of those DNA fragments. In addition, a w...

Recently, the use of a liquid biopsy has shown promise in monitoring tumor burden. While point mutations have been extensively studied, chromosomal rearrangements have demonstrated greater tumor specificity. Such rearrangements can be identified in the tumor and subsequently detected in the plasma of patients using quantitative PCR (qPCR). In this study we used a whole-genome mate-pair protocol...

People knew that the DNA molecule existed outside of cell even before finding out its famous double helix structure. Mandel and colleagues identified DNA molecule, termed as cell-free nucleic acids (cfDNA) later, in human bloodstream in as early as 1948.1 However, at that time no people realized how these DNA molecules associate with human diseases. Thing started turning around until 1964, DNA ...

OBJECTIVE DNA from apoptotic cancer cells, present in the circulation, has the potential to facilitate genomic profiling and disease monitoring. However, only low fractions of total cell-free DNA originates from cancer cells, limiting the applicability of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA). Optimal sample processing is consequently of uttermost importance. Therefore, we evaluated the in vitro stabi...