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A blood sample could one day be enough to diagnose many types of solid cancers, or to monitor the amount of cancer in a patient’s body and responses to treatment. Previous versions of the approach, which relies on monitoring levels of tumor DNA circulating in the blood, have required cumbersome and time-consuming steps to customize it to each patient or have not been sufficiently sensitive.
Dr. Maximilian Diehn, Professor of radiation oncology, said, “We set out to develop a method that overcomes two major hurdles in the circulating tumor DNA field”. The research team said the test will prove quite beneficial in the treatment of cancers like breast, lung and prostate cancer.
As per Diehn, the test will be able to use among healthy and at-risk patients for detecting signs of cancer. The test will also be able to reveal about different types of cancers building a type of resistance to treatments provided by physicians. This revelation will allow doctors to change the treatment.
Diehn is of the belief that if evolution of the tumor can be known and also if the appearance of treatment-resistant subclones gets seen, there is a chance to switch or add therapies to target those cells.
Dr. Ash Alizadeh said their aim is to come up with a general to detect as well as measure disease burden. With the help of the tests that monitor circulating tumor DNA, they are actually trying to transfer solid tumors into liquid tumors that are easy to detect as well as more easy to be tracked. The study has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Agencies/Canadajournal
