Liquid Biopsies for Early Response Evaluation of Radium-223 in Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

Purpose: Reliable biomarkers for response monitoring during radium-223 treatment in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) are lacking. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), obtained from liquid biopsies, are shown to have prognostic value in mCRPC. The aim of this study was to determine the value of CTCs and ctDNA for response evaluation of radium-223.

Ga-PSMA PET/CT for Response Evaluation of Ra Treatment in Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

CT and bone scintigraphy are not useful for response evaluation of bone metastases to Ra treatment in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). PET using Ga prostate-specific membrane antigen 11 (Ga-PSMA) is a promising tool for response evaluation of mCRPC. The aim of this study was to determine the utility of Ga-PSMA PET/CT for response evaluation of Ra treatment in patients with mCRPC.

Predicting response to enzalutamide and abiraterone in metastatic prostate cancer using whole-omics machine learning.

Response to androgen receptor signaling inhibitors (ARSI) varies widely in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). To improve treatment guidance, biomarkers are needed. We use whole-genomics (WGS; n = 155) with matching whole-transcriptomics (WTS; n = 113) from biopsies of ARSI-treated mCRPC patients for unbiased discovery of biomarkers and development of machine learning-based prediction models.

Characterizing Circulating Tumor Cells and Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Metastatic Castration-Naive and Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Patients.

Circulating tumor cell (CTC)- and/or tumor-derived extracellular vesicle (tdEV) loads in the blood of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) patients are associated with worse overall survival and can be used as predictive markers of treatment response. In this study, we investigated the quantity/quality of CTCs and tdEVs in metastatic castration-naive prostate cancer (CNPC) and CRPC patients, and whether androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) affects CTCs and tdEVs. We included 104 CNPC patients before ADT initiation and 66 CRPC patients.

Comparison of Ga-labeled Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen Ligand Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography for Primary Staging of Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Context: In December 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a Ga-labeled prostate-specific membrane antigen ligand (Ga-PSMA-11) for positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with suspected prostate cancer (PCa) metastasis who are candidates for initial definitive therapy. Ga-PSMA PET is increasingly performed for these patients and is usually combined with computed tomography (CT). In recent years, Ga-PSMA PET has been combined with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is beneficial for T staging and may further enhance the staging of primary PCa.

Optimizing Nanopore sequencing-based detection of structural variants enables individualized circulating tumor DNA-based disease monitoring in cancer patients.

Here, we describe a novel approach for rapid discovery of a set of tumor-specific genomic structural variants (SVs), based on a combination of low coverage cancer genome sequencing using Oxford Nanopore with an SV calling and filtering pipeline. We applied the method to tumor samples of high-grade ovarian and prostate cancer patients and validated on average ten somatic SVs per patient with breakpoint-spanning PCR mini-amplicons. These SVs could be quantified in ctDNA samples of patients with metastatic prostate cancer using a digital PCR assay.

Generating human prostate cancer organoids from leukapheresis enriched circulating tumour cells.

Background: Circulating tumour cell (CTC)-derived organoids have the potential to provide a powerful tool for personalised cancer therapy but are restrained by low CTC numbers provided by blood samples. Here, we used diagnostic leukapheresis (DLA) to enrich CTCs from patients with metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) and explored whether organoids provide a platform for ex vivo treatment modelling.

Methods: We prospectively screened 102 patients with mPCa and performed DLA in 40 patients with ≥5 CTCs/7.

Ga-PSMA-Guided Bone Biopsies for Molecular Diagnostics in Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

For individual treatment decisions in patients with metastatic prostate cancer (mPC), molecular diagnostics are increasingly used. Bone metastases are frequently the only source for obtaining metastatic tumor tissue. However, the success rate of CT-guided bone biopsies for molecular analyses in mPC patients is approximately only 40%.