January, 2025
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Charles Swanton: Ultrasensitive ctDNA detection for early-stage NSCLC stratification
Jan 15, 2025, 04:29

Charles Swanton: Ultrasensitive ctDNA detection for early-stage NSCLC stratification

Charles Swanton , Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University College London Cancer Institute, shared a post on X:

“Our paper describing the use of an ultrasensitive circulating tumour DNA detection assay to stratify TRACERx patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer pre-operatively for clinical outcome is out today Nature Medicine.

ctDNA is an established biomarker for high-risk disease before and after surgical resection in NSCLC. We tested NeXT Personal, an assay from Personalis able to detect ctDNA at extremely low levels, to understand whether ultra-sensitive approaches provide added value here.

They do: we identified ctDNA in a greater fraction of patients; and the subset of adenocarcinomas where ctDNA was present pre-operatively at v. low levels (<0.008% VAF: ie below limit of detection of other approaches) had worse outcomes vs. those in which ctDNA not detected.

We hope this work highlights the value of exquisitely sensitive and specific tumour-informed approaches for ctDNA detection in the clinic.

Thank you to James Black who led this work; thank you to funders Cancer Research UK, Science and Innovation at CRUK, CRUK Lung Centre, The Royal Society, Rosetrees Trust, Personalis and Personalis team Gabor Bartha, Sean Boyle, Charles Abbott, Bailiang Li and Richard Chen, and all other co-authors.”

Ultrasensitive ctDNA detection for preoperative disease stratification in early-stage lung adenocarcinoma

Authors: James R. M. Black et al.

Charles swanton

Charles Swanton is the Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University College London Cancer Institute. He is a Senior Group leader at the Cancer Research UK, London Research Institute.