Circulating tumor cells in metastatic breast cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors - a biomarker analysis of the ALICE and ICON trials.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been introduced in breast cancer (BC) treatment and better biomarkers are needed to predict benefit. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are prognostic in BC, but knowledge is limited on CTCs in the context of ICI therapy. In this study, serial sampling of CTCs (CellSearch system) was evaluated in 82 patients with metastatic BC enrolled in two randomized trials investigating ICI plus chemotherapy.

Extracellular vesicles as a potential source of tumor-derived DNA in advanced pancreatic cancer.

Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) are reported to contain nucleic acids, including DNA. Several studies have highlighted the potential of EV-derived DNA (evDNA) as a circulating biomarker, even demonstrating that evDNA can outperform cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in terms of sensitivity. Here, we evaluated EVs as a potential source of tumor-derived DNA in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Monitoring of circulating tumour DNA in advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma predicts clinical outcome and reveals disease progression earlier than radiological imaging.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal disease with a need for better tools to guide treatment selection and follow-up. The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the prognostic value and treatment monitoring potential of longitudinal circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) measurements in patients with advanced PDAC undergoing palliative chemotherapy. Using KRAS peptide nucleic acid clamp-PCR, we measured ctDNA levels in plasma samples obtained at baseline and every 4 weeks during chemotherapy from 81 patients with locally advanced and metastatic PDAC.

Comprehensive ctDNA Measurements Improve Prediction of Clinical Outcomes and Enable Dynamic Tracking of Disease Progression in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer.

Purpose: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising tumor-specific biomarker in pancreatic cancer, but current evidence of the clinical potential of ctDNA is limited. In this study, we used comprehensive detection methodology to explore the utility of longitudinal ctDNA measurements in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Experimental Design: A targeted eight-gene next-generation sequencing panel was used to detect point mutations and copy-number aberrations (CNA) in ctDNA from 324 pre-treatment and longitudinal plasma samples obtained from 56 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Prognostic value of disseminated tumor cells in unresectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a prospective observational study.

Background: Although pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) rarely metastasizes to the skeleton, disseminated tumor cells have been detected in bone marrow samples from patients with this disease. The prognostic value of such findings is currently unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to clarify the prognostic information associated with disseminated tumor cell detection in samples from patients with PDAC.