|
Stefan Holdenrieder German Heart Center Munich, TUM, Germany |
Abstract
The concept of “precision medicine” in the treatment of cancer patients aims to specifically target deregulated molecular cancer pathways that are involved in cancer cell proliferation, angiogenesis, metastasis and evasion of the immune control. Classical ways are extracellular blockage of membrane-bound growth receptors by specific antibodies or intracellular inhibition of cancer pathways by small molecules like tyrosine kinase inhibitors that have shown promising therapeutic results. New approaches aim to restore and reactivate immune cell functions to attack the tumor in a more sustainable way. Precondition for precisely acting drugs is the presence of the respective molecular changes that have to be detected in tumor tissue or in the blood plasma – also known as “liquid biopsy” or “liquid profiling” – prior to therapy. Sensitive blood-based diagnostics are able to identify druggable mutations in cell-free plasma tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTC). Current diagnostic strategies include single-, multi-gene and whole exome / genome approaches that have recently become more sensitive and specific by the introduction of tumor-enrichment and error-reducing techniques. As liquid profiling is only minimally invasive it can be used to complement tissue biopsy for patient stratification and for the serial monitoring of successfully treated and newly occurring resistant cell clones at an individual level. With only few exceptions, plasma ctDNA is measurable in patients with most tumor types, particularly at advanced stage of disease. Concordance with tumor tissue is around 90% if highly sensitive methods are used. ctDNA diagnostics support therapy stratification if tumor biopsy is not available or insufficient, has predictive and prognostic power and can be used as modern, quantifiable tumor marker for monitoring mutation-positive patients. Finally, multiplexing and sequencing enables the detection of new mutations. Preanalytics and rigorous quality control have turned out to be critical for reproducible results. Today, the use of blood conserving tubes, double centrifugation, standardized DNA extraction, enrichment, quantification and sequencing techniques are basic requirements for ctDNA diagnostics. Plasma-based ctDNA “companion diagnostics” has developed to a valuable new tool for precision medicine. First assays are available as IVD-CE labelled methods to be applied in routine diagnostics. High grades of technological and quality standards as well as future combination with protein and metabolome markers will help to improve the diagnostic accuracy and facilitate new applications in other fields of precision medicine such as in immune checkpoint therapies.
| Back to GQ2019 overview page |
|---|
