Abstract

Liquid Biopsies – A New Tool in the Personalized Cancer Therapy Toolbox

Filip Janku, Assistant Professor, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

In the era of precision medicine, the optimal choice of cancer therapy depends upon analysis of the tumor genome. The spatial and temporal intratumor heterogeneity of cancers creates substantial challenges, as molecular profile depends on time and site of tumor tissue collection. Molecular analysis of liquid biopsies offers a novel, minimally invasive method that can be performed at multiple time-points and plausibly represents the prevailing molecular profile of the cancer. Molecular analysis of liquid biopsies offers multiple clinically useful applications, such as identification of molecular targets for cancer therapy, monitoring of tumor molecular profile in real time, detection of emerging molecular aberrations associated with resistance to particular therapy, determination of cancer prognosis and cancer recurrence or progression.