[goldmine848]

Liquid biopsies as an alternative to bone marrow biopsies

by goldmine848 on Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:50 pm

Interesting study on the efficacy of liquid biopsies (using peripheral blood) as an alternative to bone marrow biopsies. There is more work to be done but the results so far are encouraging:

Manier, S., et al., "Whole-exome sequencing of cell-free DNA and circulating tumor cells in multiple myeloma," Nature Communications, April 27, 2018 (full text of article)

Abstract:

Liquid biopsies including circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and cell-free DNA (cfDNA) have enabled minimally invasive characterization of many cancers, but are rarely analyzed together. Understanding the detectability and genomic concordance of CTCs and cfDNA may inform their use in guiding cancer precision medicine. Here, we report the detectability of cfDNA and CTCs in blood samples from 107 and 56 patients with multiple myeloma, respectively. Using ultra-low pass whole-genome sequencing, we find both tumor fractions correlate with disease progression. Applying whole-exome sequencing (WES) to cfDNA, CTCs, and matched tumor biopsies, we find concordance in clonal somatic mutations (~99%) and copy number alterations (~81%) between liquid and tumor biopsies. Importantly, analyzing CTCs and cfDNA together enables cross-validation of mutations, uncovers mutations exclusive to either CTCs or cfDNA, and allows blood-based tumor profiling in a greater fraction of patients. Our study demonstrates the utility of analyzing both CTCs and cfDNA in multiple myeloma.