Liquid Biopsy for Cancer: What You Need to Know | The Doctor Weighs In

By: Patricia Salber MD, MBA (@docweighsin)

Liquid biopsy for cancer is an exciting new technology that holds a lot of promise in diagnosis, treatment, and management of the disease.

Graphic from Wikimedia: Jonathan Bailey / NHGRI [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

In his opening keynote for the Liquid Biopsy for Cancer workshop at the 2019 Precision Medicine World Conference, Max Diehn M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Stanford Cancer Institute, defined liquid biopsy as

“Analysis of tumor cells or cell products in body fluids obtained by non- or minimally invasive procedures.”

He noted that a variety of body fluids can be used to perform the biopsy, including

• Blood
• Urine
• Cerebrospinal fluid
• Pleural fluid (fluid around the lung)
• Peritoneal fluid (fluid in the abdominal cavity)

Liquid biopsy is possible because of the unique biology of cancer cells.

Topics covered in this review:

• Tumor characteristics that make liquid biopsy for cancer possible
• Clinical applications of ctDNA