In a presentation at the 19th Meeting of the European Association of Urology (EAU) Section of Oncological Urology the use of liquid biomarkers in advanced kidney cancer was discussed. The purpose of liquid biomarkers is to look at the features of tumour DNA in blood samples.

The presentation concluded that:

  • Tracking tumour mutations through circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) has many applications for the clinical management of cancer
  • Next-generation DNA sequencing can detect tumour-specific mutations in ctDNA in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
  • Different mutations, called clonal or subclonal mutations, in the primary tumour can be identified in the blood
  • Circulating tumour DNA can be used to track response to treatment
  • A top research priority is the detection of ctDNA in the blood following adjuvant treatment for intermediate or high risk localised kidney cancer
  • Other liquid biomarkers include: (i) ctDNA (copy number profiling, fragmentation patterns, methylation profiling), (ii) PBMC/TCR sequencing, (iii) neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratios, (iv) analysis of urine samples.

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