DiaCarta Q&A: Liquid Biopsy for Early Cancer Detection
When a patient develops cancer, two different cancer-derived materials can be found in their blood: intact circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and cell-free circulating tumour DNA (cfDNA), which is released into the bloodstream as tumours grow. Clinicians can use blood drawn from a patient’s arm to search for CTCs and cfDNA that may be circulating in their bloodstream using a liquid biopsy.
Many liquid biopsy technologies are based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technology that amplifies the information present within molecules and makes it easier to detect any mutations in known cancer-related genes.
Sometimes these cancerous changes can be very small, and clinicians will need to rely on deep sequencing – where a genomic region is sequenced hundreds, or even thousands, of times.
UF Innovate | Sid Martin Biotech alum DiaCarta Inc., a precision molecular diagnostics company, announced that its cfDNA biomarker algorithm was able to function as a prognostic biomarker and efficacy predictor for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The algorithm was able to provide real-time evaluation of the therapy and allowed clinicians to adjust the treatment at earlier stages.
DiaCarta is now initiating a large-scale clinical development program, which will monitor cfDNA levels to determine early treatment outcomes of systemic therapy in all types of stage IV cancer.
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