Abstract

Monitoring Disease Burden and Resistance to Targeted Therapy in Solid Tumors Using Liquid Biopsies

Janet Jin, Director of Assay Development, Roche Sequencing Solutions

The potential of liquid biopsies for use in clinical research and patient management in oncology is of significant interest to clinicians as a complementary tool to tumor tissue testing.  Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies enable testing of multiple markers in one assay, overcoming the challenges of limited sample availability.  Potential applications of NGS-based circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis include high-risk screening, surveillance, treatment prediction and monitoring for disease recurrence/resistance. Comprehensive testing of disease burden from ctDNA in plasma is currently used for clinical research.  The AVENIO ctDNA Analysis Kits (For Research Use Only) offer researchers the option to sequence predictive markers, as well as highly mutated regions to assess disease burden and identifying resistance to targeted therapies in solid tumors. Our research demonstrates the potential utility for testing ctDNA to identify an increased risk of disease progression in colorectal cancer; and to identify resistance mechanisms to targeted therapy in lung cancer.  Further clinical validation is required.