FDA-Led Consortium Details Improvements Needed in Liquid Biopsies

In the largest effort to date to standardize performance metrics of the cancer diagnostic across products, researchers say the products can likely detect advanced tumors reliably, but early-stage malignancies would remain a challenge.

Written byMarcus A. Banks

| 4 min read

Save for Later

clear blood draw tubes with peach-colored caps and white labels with a red banner that has a DNA double helix icon and the word text. inside the tubes is a conceptual drawing of a DNA double helix in white

Listen with Speechify

0:00

4:00

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, UNDEFINED

Several liquid biopsy products have the ability to detect tumor DNA circulating in a patient’s blood, according to an analysis that simulated the sensitivity of these products, provided the genetic variations linked to these cancers are sufficiently numerous in the sample to be captured by the test. The biopsies are much less reliable at detecting signs of cancer as variant frequency declines, which is often the case when a cancer is at an early stage. The study was published April 12 in Nature Biotechnology.

Although the relationship between the proportion of tumorous to healthy DNA in circulation and liquid biopsy performance was already known, this study is unique in that the authors used standardized samples of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to compare the effectiveness of five research products, produced by Roche, Illumina, Integrated DNA Technologies, Burning Rock Dx, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. While company officials were ...

Interested in reading more?

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member?

Add The Scientist as a preferred Google source to see more of our trusted coverage.

Meet the Author

Marcus A. Banks
Marcus is a science and health journalist based in New York City. He graduated from the Science Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University in 2019, and earned a master’s in Library and Information Science from Dominican University in 2002. He’s written for Slate, Undark, Spectrum, and Cancer Today.
View Full Profile