Related Experiment Video For Biomarker
Updated: Aug 20, 2025
Detection of Cell-Free DNA in Blood Plasma Samples of Cancer Patients
Published on: September 9, 2020
A study for evaluating clinical relevance of circulating cell-free DNA in cervical cancer
Anju Shrivastava1, Garima Singh2, Kumud Tiwari2
1Department of Radiotherapy and Radiation Medicine, Sir Sunderlal Hospital, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Introduction:
Recent techniques available for the detection of cervical cancer (CC) are highly invasive and costly, which makes it a rate-limiting step toward early diagnosis of this fatal disease. Evaluation of circulating cell-free DNA (ccfDNA) through liquid biopsy is a minimally invasive and cost-effective method that may serve as a unique tumor marker for early detection, treatment monitoring, the status of residual disease, and distant tumor metastasis in CC patients.
Materials And Methods:
In this study, initially, ccfDNA was measured in serum samples from 11 histopathologically proven cervix carcinoma patients and 8 controls. On successful screening, it was further extended to 2 more patients with a series of serum samples extracted at 3 different phases of the concurrent chemoradiotherapy (i.e., before, during, and after 6 months of follow-up).
Results:
Agarose gel electrophoresis profile for ccfDNA of CC patients showed that of 11 patients, 4 patients had a comparatively higher tumor burden (ccfDNA) than the other 7 patients. Notably, during concurrent chemoradiotherapy, ccfDNA load disappeared and, after 6 months of follow-up, appeared back due to distant metastasis.
Conclusion:
Hence, we propose that this method could be an affordable and reliable way to diagnose/screen CC.
