Liquid biopsy: the clinical implications in oncology

Tumor tissue is known to have high heterogeneity, a hurdle frequently encountered in the development of precision medicine, meaning a series of tumor biopsy samples must be taken over a long time period in order to gain an understanding of a cancer’s genomic evolution [1]. These challenges have led to the creation of the liquid biopsy. Over the last five years, developments in blood tests and next-generation sequencing have enabled the analysis of biomarkers produced by the tumors and released into the blood[2]. These markers can include, circulating free DNA (cfDNA) fragments – termed circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) – and...