Cancer Diagnosis Using a Liquid Biopsy: Challenges and Expectations

Overview

Journal Diagnostics (Basel)

Specialty Radiology

Date 2018 May 12

PMID 29747380

Citations 50

Authors

Francesc Castro-Giner

Sofia Gkountela

Cinzia Donato

Ilaria Alborelli

Luca Quagliata

Charlotte K Y Ng

Salvatore Piscuoglio

Nicola Aceto

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The field of cancer diagnostics has recently been impacted by new and exciting developments in the area of liquid biopsy. A liquid biopsy is a minimally invasive alternative to surgical biopsies of solid tissues, typically achieved through the withdrawal of a blood sample or other body fluids, allowing the interrogation of tumor-derived material including circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) fragments that are present at a given time point. In this short review, we discuss a few studies that summarize the state-of-the-art in the liquid biopsy field from a diagnostic perspective, and speculate on current challenges and expectations of implementing liquid biopsy testing for cancer diagnosis and monitoring in the clinical setting.

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