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Liquid Biopsy for Cancer Detection
We’re a long way from curing cancer, but one way to work toward this goal is to diagnose cancer early. It’s key to surviving cancer or to living longer with it. Treating it early means cancer has less chance of growing and spreading. That’s why we need a simple blood test to diagnose cancer.
Today, many so called “liquid biopsies” are in development including looking for cancer markers in urine, saliva and other bodily liquids. Right now, cancer diagnosis involves a doctor’s evaluation, labs, imaging, and a biopsy to confirm it. But prostate cancer is one of very few cancers already being diagnosed with a blood draw. The blood is screened for molecules or cells that indicate the presence of cancer somewhere in the body. Some look for specific cancer “signatures” from a tumor’s circulating DNA. These signatures reveal changes in our tumor cells’ DNA including mutations or epigenetic changes.
New studies suggest a single blood draw may be able to detect over fifty different cancers. Liquid biopsy will be incredibly important for cancers that are now hard to detect until the late stages when people’s lives are at greater risk.
Pancreatic cancer accounts for nearly 9 percent of all cancer deaths in the US and there’s no early detection for it yet. But in a study, a blood draw detected the cancer in more than 70 percent of patients and correctly identified those without it. Even though it’s not ready for clinical trials, we hope it’s just a matter of time.
More Information
Liquid biopsy in cancer: current status, challenges and future prospects
Cancer has a high mortality rate across the globe, and tissue biopsy remains the gold standard for tumor diagnosis due to its high level of laboratory standardization, good consistency of results, relatively stable samples, and high accuracy of results. However, there are still many limitations and drawbacks in the application of tissue biopsy in tumor. The emergence of liquid biopsy provides new ideas for early diagnosis and prognosis of tumor.
Liquid Biopsy
A liquid biopsy is a blood test that detects signs of cancerous tumors, including tumor cells and cancer cell DNA. Current U.S. FDA-approved tests can detect some types of advanced cancers, predict prognosis and help healthcare providers make treatment decisions. Research is ongoing to explore additional uses of liquid biopsy tests.
National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Prevention: Liquid Biopsy Consortium
The Liquid Biopsy Consortium is an Academic/Industrial Partnership program designed to advance and validate Liquid Biopsy technologies specifically targeted for early stage cancer detection. The goal is to test body fluids such as blood, urine, saliva, stool, and sputum from patients suspected to have early stage cancer as well as those at high risk of developing cancer.
