Notice: Users may be experiencing issues with displaying some pages on stanfordhealthcare.org. We are working closely with our technical teams to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Detection of Circulating Tumor DNA in Early- and Late-Stage Human Malignancies SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE Bettegowda, C., Sausen, M., Leary, R. J., Kinde, I., Wang, Y., Agrawal, N., Bartlett, B. R., Wang, H., Luber, B., Alani, R. M., Antonarakis, E. S., Azad, N. S., Bardelli, A., Brem, H., Cameron, J. L., Lee, C. C., Fecher, L. A., Gallia, G. L., Gibbs, P., Le, D., Giuntoli, R. L., Goggins, M., Hogarty, M. D., Holdhoff, M., Hong, S., Jiao, Y., Juhl, H. H., Kim, J. J., Siravegna, G., Laheru, D. A., Lauricella, C., Lim, M., Lipson, E. J., Marie, S., Netto, G. J., Oliner, K. S., Olivi, A., Olsson, L., Riggins, G. J., Sartore-Bianchi, A., Schmidt, K., Shih, I., Oba-Shinjo, S., Siena, S., Theodorescu, D., Tie, J., Harkins, T. T., Veronese, S., Wang, T., Weingart, J. D., Wolfgang, C. L., Wood, L. D., Xing, D., Hruban, R. H., Wu, J., Allen, P. J., Schmidt, C., Choti, M. A., Velculescu, V. E., Kinzler, K. W., Vogelstein, B., Papadopoulos, N., Diaz, L. A. 2014; 6 (224): 224ra24

Abstract

The development of noninvasive methods to detect and monitor tumors continues to be a major challenge in oncology. We used digital polymerase chain reaction-based technologies to evaluate the ability of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to detect tumors in 640 patients with various cancer types. We found that ctDNA was detectable in >75% of patients with advanced pancreatic, ovarian, colorectal, bladder, gastroesophageal, breast, melanoma, hepatocellular, and head and neck cancers, but in less than 50% of primary brain, renal, prostate, or thyroid cancers. In patients with localized tumors, ctDNA was detected in 73, 57, 48, and 50% of patients with colorectal cancer, gastroesophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and breast adenocarcinoma, respectively. ctDNA was often present in patients without detectable circulating tumor cells, suggesting that these two biomarkers are distinct entities. In a separate panel of 206 patients with metastatic colorectal cancers, we showed that the sensitivity of ctDNA for detection of clinically relevant KRAS gene mutations was 87.2% and its specificity was 99.2%. Finally, we assessed whether ctDNA could provide clues into the mechanisms underlying resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor blockade in 24 patients who objectively responded to therapy but subsequently relapsed. Twenty-three (96%) of these patients developed one or more mutations in genes involved in the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. Together, these data suggest that ctDNA is a broadly applicable, sensitive, and specific biomarker that can be used for a variety of clinical and research purposes in patients with multiple different types of cancer.

View details for DOI 10.1126/scitranslmed.3007094

View details for Web of Science ID 000331476700004

View details for PubMedID 24553385

View details for PubMedCentralID PMC4017867