Abstract

Liquid biopsies hold the potential to inform cancer patient prognosis and to guide treatment decisions at the time when direct tumor biopsy may be impractical due to its invasive nature, inaccessibility and associated complications. Specifically, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have shown promising results as companion diagnostic biomarkers for screening, prognostication and/or patient surveillance in many cancer types. In ovarian cancer (OC), CTC and ctDNA analysis allow comprehensive molecular profiling of the primary, metastatic and recurrent tumors. These biomarkers also correlate with overall tumor burden and thus, they provide minimally-invasive means for patient monitoring during clinical course to ascertain therapy response and timely treatment modification in the context of disease relapse. Here, we review recent reports of the potential clinical value of CTC and ctDNA in OC, expatiating on their use in diagnosis and prognosis. We critically appraise the current evidence, and discuss the issues that still need to be addressed before liquid biopsies can be implemented in routine clinical practice for OC management.

RAS ID

29987

Document Type

Other

Date of Publication

1-1-2020

Funding Information

Edith Cowan University PhD Scholarship.

Cancer Research Trust and Cancer Council Western Australia.

Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG).

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Publisher

Elsevier

Comments

Asante, D. B., Calapre, L., Ziman, M., Meniawy, T. M., & Gray, E. S. (2020). Liquid biopsy in ovarian cancer using circulating tumor DNA and cells: Ready for prime time?. Cancer Letters, 468, 59-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2019.10.014

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1016/j.canlet.2019.10.014