[The importance of liquid biopsy studies in solid tumours]

The incidence of cancer is rising significantly in Hungary and worldwide. It is one of the leading causes of both morbidity and mortality. In recent years, the advent of personalised treatments and targeted therapies have brought significant advances in the treatment of cancer. Targeted therapies are based on the identification of genetic variations in patients' tumour tissue. However, tissue or cytological sampling poses a number of difficulties, while non-invasive procedures such as liquid biopsy studies can be a good alternative to overcome these problems. In nucleic acids from liquid biopsy samples, circulating tumour cells or free circulating tumour DNA, RNA present in the plasma the same genetic abnormalities can be detected that are present in tumours and their quantification is suitable for therapy monitoring and prognosis estimation. In our summary, we describe the advantages and difficulties of liquid biopsy specimen analysis and its potential for use in everyday clinical practice for molecular diagnosis of solid tumours.