Cytopathology. 2025 Apr 11. doi: 10.1111/cyt.13485. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The advent of personalised and precision medicine has radically modified the management and the clinical outcome of cancer patients. However, the expanding number of predictive, prognostic, and diagnostic biomarkers has raised the need for simple, noninvasive, quicker, but equally efficient tests for molecular profiling. In this complex scenario, the adoption of liquid biopsy, particularly circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), has been a real godsend for many cancer patients who would otherwise have been denied the benefits of targeted treatments. Undeniably, ctDNA analysis has several advantages over conventional tissue-based analysis. One advantage is that it can guide treatment decision making, especially when tissue samples are scarce or totally unavailable. Indeed, a simple blood test can inform clinicians on patients' response or resistance to targeted therapies, help them monitor minimal residual disease (MRD) after surgical resections, and facilitate them with early cancer detection and interception. Finally, an equally important advantage is that ctDNA analysis can help decipher temporal and spatial tumour heterogeneity, a mechanism highly responsible for therapeutic resistance. In this review, we gathered and analysed current evidence on the clinical usefulness of ctDNA analysis in solid tumours.

PMID:40219616 | DOI:10.1111/cyt.13485

Tuberc Respir Dis (Seoul). 2025 Apr 8. doi: 10.4046/trd.2024.0146. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Molecular profiling of tumours from patients plays a crucial role in precision oncology. While tumour tissue-based genomic testing remains the gold standard in clinical management of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, advances in genomic technologies, the analysis of various bodily fluids, mainly blood but also saliva, pleural/ pericardial effusions, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid is now feasible and readily available. In this review, we will focus on the clinical application of circulating tumour DNA in patients with non-small cell lung cancer in the setting of early-stage disease, locally advanced disease with attention to the potential of ctDNA in prognostication, risk stratification, minimal residual disease, and in advanced disease, its role in the detection of genomic markers and mechanisms of acquired resistance. The role of ctDNA and liquid biopsies in lung cancer screening will also be discussed.

PMID:40195729 | DOI:10.4046/trd.2024.0146