scholarly journals Personalized Treatment Selection and Disease Monitoring Using Circulating Tumor DNA Profiling in Real-World Cancer Patient Management

Diagnostics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 550
Author(s):  
Julius Wehrle ◽  
Ulrike Philipp ◽  
Martina Jolic ◽  
Marie Follo ◽  
Saskia Hussung ◽  
...  

Background: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the blood plasma of cancer patients is an emerging biomarker used across oncology, facilitating noninvasive disease monitoring and genetic profiling at various disease milestones. Digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) technologies have demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity for robust ctDNA detection at relatively low costs. Yet, their value for ctDNA-based management of a broad population of cancer patients beyond clinical trials remains elusive. Methods: We developed mutation-specific ddPCR assays that were optimized for their use in real-world cancer management, covering 12 genetic aberrations in common cancer genes, such as EGFR, BRAF, KIT, KRAS, and NRAS. We assessed the limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of blank (LOB) for each assay and validated their performance for ctDNA detection using matched tumor sequencing. Results: We applied our custom ddPCR assays to 352 plasma samples from 96 patients with solid tumors. Mutation detection in plasma was highly concordant with tumor sequencing, demonstrating high sensitivity and specificity across all assays. In 20 cases, radiographic cancer progression was mirrored by an increase of ctDNA concentrations or the occurrence of novel mutations in plasma. Moreover, ctDNA profiling at diagnosis and during disease progression reflected personalized treatment selection through the identification of actionable gene targets in 20 cases. Conclusion: Collectively, our work highlights the potential of ctDNA assessment by sensitive ddPCR for accurate disease monitoring, robust identification of resistance mutations, and upfront treatment selection in patients with solid tumors. We envision an increasing future role for ctDNA profiling within personalized cancer management in daily clinical routine.

Author(s):  
Lindsey Michelle Charo ◽  
Ramez N. Eskander ◽  
Ryosuke Okamura ◽  
Sandip Patel ◽  
Mina Nikanjam ◽  
...  

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 3443
Author(s):  
Ayanthi A. Wijewardene ◽  
Marthe Chehade ◽  
Matti L. Gild ◽  
Roderick J. Clifton-Bligh ◽  
Martyn Bullock

Liquid biopsies are a novel technique to assess for either circulating tumor cells (CTC) or circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA and microRNA (miRNA)) in peripheral blood samples of cancer patients. The diagnostic role of liquid biopsy in oncology has expanded in recent years, particularly in lung, colorectal and breast cancer. In thyroid cancer, the role of liquid biopsy in either diagnosis or prognosis is beginning to translate from the lab to the clinic. In this review, we describe the evolution of liquid biopsies in detecting CTC, ctDNA and miRNA in thyroid cancer patients, together with its limitations and future directions in clinical practice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e14520-e14520
Author(s):  
Rui Lin ◽  
Yue Pu ◽  
Li Mao

e14520 Background: In the era of precision medicine, liquid biopsy analysis is well accepted based on advantages including availability, non-invasiveness, and non-heterogeneity. However, the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in liquid biopsy is diluted by a large excess of wild-type alleles, which necessitates high sensitivity approach for ctDNA detection. In addition, ctDNA analysis from different liquid biopsy samples need to be evaluated. Methods: We have developed a novel mutant-capture based method, termed PErsonalized Analysis of Cancer (PEAC), for high sensitivity detection of cancer driver mutants at abundance as low as 0.01-0.1% for circulating free DNA (cfDNA) standards. ctDNA samples were extracted from body fluids of lung cancer patients including plasma, pleural effusion and cerebrospinal fluid. EGFR mutants predictive of EGFR tyrosine kinase activity were enriched using PEAC technology, and analyzed using Sanger sequencing. Results: Plasma ctDNA samples B7110003, B7110010, and B7112012 had no or barely detectable L858R mutation, which was enriched to 50-90% after PEAC and readily detected by Sanger. T790M was undetectable before PEAC in plasma sample B7112052 and became 50% after PEAC enrichment. Pleural effusion samples E8106029 and E8111305 had dominated L858R and T790M peaks, respectively, in Sanger chromatograms after PEAC, which was almost to the background levels prior to PEAC. Interestingly, both EGFR L858R and T790M mutants were detected in pleural effusion sample E8106029 after PEAC; the sample was from a patient who had previously treated with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), suggestive of resistance developed after target therapy and the utility of PEAC in monitoring patient’s response to EGFR TKI. In addition to enriching point mutations, we also established enrichment of the most frequently occurred EGFR 19 deletion, E746_A750del (c. 2235_2249 del15), which were dominant after PEAC enrichment of ctDNA from plasma samples (B8101186 and B8101241), pleural effusion (E8108088) and cerebrospinal fluid (C8108095); the mutants were undetectable without PEAC enrichment. Conclusions: PEAC technology can enrich ctDNA from body fluids in lung cancer patients and allow detection of low abundant mutants predictive for EGFR TKI therapy. With further validation, the technology may improve current detection methods used in clinical practice.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emre Yekedüz ◽  
Elif Berna Köksoy ◽  
Hakan Akbulut ◽  
Yüksel Ürün ◽  
Güngör Utkan

Aim: Using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) instead of historical clinicopathological factors to select patients for adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) may reduce inappropriate therapy. Material & methods: MEDLINE was searched on March 31, 2020. Studies, including data related to the prognostic value of ctDNA in the colon cancer patients after surgery and after ACT, were included. The generic inverse-variance method with a random-effects model was used for meta-analysis. Results: Four studies were included for this meta-analysis. ctDNA-positive colon cancer patients after surgery and ACT had a significantly increased risk of recurrence compared with ctDNA-negative patients. Conclusions: ctDNA is an independent prognostic factor, and this meta-analysis is a significant step for using ctDNA instead of historical prognostic factors in the adjuvant setting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. ii15-ii15
Author(s):  
Farshad Nassiri ◽  
Ankur Chakravarthy ◽  
Shengrui Feng ◽  
Roxana Shen ◽  
Romina Nejad ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND The diagnosis of intracranial tumors relies on tissue specimens obtained by invasive surgery. Non-invasive diagnostic approaches, particularly for patients with brain tumours, provide an opportunity to avoid surgery and mitigate unnecessary risk to patients. We reasoned that DNA methylation profiles of circulating tumor DNA in blood can be used as a clinically useful biomarker for patients with brain tumors, given the specificity of DNA methylation profiles for cell-of-origin. METHODS We generated methylation profiles on the plasma of 608 patients with cancer (219 intracranial, 388 extracranial) and 60 healthy controls using a cell-free methylated DNA immunoprecipitation combined with deep sequencing (cfMeDIP-seq) approach. Using machine-learning approaches we generated and evaluated models to distinguish brain tumors from extracranial cancers that may metastasize to the brain, as well as additional models to discriminate common brain tumors included in the differential diagnosis of solitary extra-axial and intra-axial tumors. RESULTS We observed high sensitivity and discriminative capacity for our models to distinguish gliomas from other cancerous and healthy patients (AUC=0.99, 95%CI 0.96–1), with similar performance in IDH mutant and wildtype gliomas as well as in lower- and high-grade gliomas. Excluding non-malignant contributors to plasma methylation did not change model performance (AUC=0.982, 95%CI 0.93–1). Models generated to discriminate intracranial tumors from each other also demonstrated high accuracy for common extra-axial tumors (AUCmeningioma=0.89, 95%CI 0.80–0.97; AUChemangiopericytoma=0.95, 95%CI 0.73–1) as well as intra-axial tumors ranging from low-grade indolent glial-neuronal tumors (AUC 0.93, 95%CI 0.80 – 1) to diffuse intra-axial gliomas with distinct molecular composition (AUCIDH-mutant glioma = 0.82, 95%CI 0.66 -0.98; AUCIDH-wildtype-glioma = 0.71, 95%CI 0.53 – 0.9). Plasma cfMeDIP-seq signals originated from corresponding tumor tissue DNA methylation signals (r=0.37, p< 2.2e-16). CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate the potential for cfMeDIP-seq profiles to not only detect circulating tumor DNA, but to accurately discriminate common intracranial tumors that share cell-of-origin lineages.


The Analyst ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojun Liu ◽  
Zhangjian Wu ◽  
Xinyi Lin ◽  
Wei Bu ◽  
Lei Qin ◽  
...  

Monitoring ctDNA in blood is important to cancer management. Here, we develop a one-step single particle counting approach for directly quantifying ctDNA in plasma. Hairpin DNA containing a triple helix...


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Silvia Galbiati ◽  
Francesco Damin ◽  
Dario Brambilla ◽  
Lucia Ferraro ◽  
Nadia Soriani ◽  
...  

It is widely accepted that assessing circular tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the plasma of cancer patients is a promising practice to evaluate somatic mutations from solid tumors noninvasively. Recently, it was reported that isolation of extracellular vesicles improves the detection of mutant DNA from plasma in metastatic patients; however, no consensus on the presence of dsDNA in exosomes has been reached yet. We analyzed small extracellular vesicle (sEV)-associated DNA of eleven metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients and compared the results obtained by microarray and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to those reported on the ctDNA fraction. We detected the same mutations found in tissue biopsies and ctDNA in all samples but, unexpectedly, in one sample, we found a KRAS mutation that was not identified either in ctDNA or tissue biopsy. Furthermore, to assess the exact location of sEV-associated DNA (outside or inside the vesicle), we treated with DNase I sEVs isolated with three different methodologies. We found that the DNA inside the vesicles is only a small fraction of that surrounding the vesicles. Its amount seems to correlate with the total amount of circulating tumor DNA. The results obtained in our experimental setting suggest that integrating ctDNA and sEV-associated DNA in mCRC patient management could provide a complete real-time assessment of the cancer mutation status.


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