Related Experiment Video For Breast cancer
Updated: Nov 11, 2025
Detection and Monitoring of Tumor Associated Circulating DNA in Patient Biofluids
Published on: June 8, 2019
Clinical application of circulating tumor DNA in breast cancer
Jeffrey Chun Hin Chan1, James Chung Hang Chow2, Connie Hoi Man Ho3
1Department of Clinical Oncology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong SAR, China. cch110@ha.org.hk.
Background:
The recent advancement in massively parallel sequencing technologies has empowered liquid biopsies, in particular circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis, to be the new paradigm in personalized cancer management. Plasma ctDNA detection overcomes the current limitations in tumor tissue procurement and serves as a convenient and non-invasive method to capture tumor heterogeneity and genetic evolution along patients' cancer journey. In breast cancer, the current clinical application of ctDNA includes real-time monitoring of tumor response, detection of drug-resistant clones, assessing dynamic variations in tumor mutational landscape, identifying actionable mutations, detecting minimal residual disease and screening of early tumor.
Purpose:
This review aims to summarize the current clinical evidence of ctDNA application in the management of breast cancer.
