Liquid Biopsy Equivalent to Tissue for NSCLC
With faster and equally accurate results, liquid biopsy may be an option for identifying guideline-recommended targeted therapies for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to findings presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting (https://www.aacr.org/Newsroom/Pages/News-Release-Detail.aspx?ItemID=1271) in Atlanta, GA.
Using samples from 282 patients, researchers at 28 North American cancer centers performed a prospective, multicenter clinical trial to compare physician-determined conventional tissue assessment to a 73-gene next-generation sequencing panel to assess cfDNA in blood. Both methods were intended to detect G7 biomarkers (EGFR, ALK, ROS1, BRAF, RET, MET, and ERBB2).
Tissue biopsies found mutations in 21.3% of the samples, whereas the liquid biopsies found them in 27.3%. Processing time for blood-based biopsy was about a week faster than for tissue biopsy.