Liquid biopsies for monitoring your cancer
Why you need to know about Liquid Biopsies:
Liquid biopsies also known as Cell-free DNA (cfDNA or ctDNA) tests, measure small fragments of DNA that are released into the blood by a shedding process from tumour cells that demonstrate mutated DNA.
Tumour cells from several cancers are known to release or shed circulating cell-free tumour DNA (ctDNA), which may contain identical mutations to those identified in a patient’s primary tumour.
Another benefit of ctDNA is to monitor therapy and check for resistance to treatments. ctDNA testing provides an overview of all the different cells within a tumour.
Analysis can detect new molecular changes in the cells, which may provide an early indication of resistance to therapy.
ctDNA early diagnosis and detection
ctDNA testing for early diagnosis & detection
The reason why it is important to track the number of cancer cells in real-time:
1. Levels of ctDNA increase with disease progression and decrease in response to treatment.
2. ctDNA can more accurately reflect the real-time tumour size and burden than other cancer markers…
3. ctDNA levels over time can be used to monitor response to treatment, as shown in Figure 1. opposite.
