scholarly journals Opportunities and Challenges of Liquid Biopsy in Thyroid Cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (14) ◽  
pp. 7707
Author(s):  
Chiara Romano ◽  
Federica Martorana ◽  
Maria Stella Pennisi ◽  
Stefania Stella ◽  
Michele Massimino ◽  
...  

Thyroid cancer is the most common malignancy of the endocrine system, encompassing different entities with distinct histological features and clinical behavior. The diagnostic definition, therapeutic approach, and follow-up of thyroid cancers display some controversial aspects that represent unmet medical needs. Liquid biopsy is a non-invasive approach that detects and analyzes biological samples released from the tumor into the bloodstream. With the use of different technologies, tumor cells, free nucleic acids, and extracellular vesicles can be retrieved in the serum of cancer patients and valuable molecular information can be obtained. Recently, a growing body of evidence is accumulating concerning the use of liquid biopsy in thyroid cancer, as it can be exploited to define a patient’s diagnosis, estimate their prognosis, and monitor tumor recurrence or treatment response. Indeed, liquid biopsy can be a valuable tool to overcome the limits of conventional management of thyroid malignancies. In this review, we summarize currently available data about liquid biopsy in differentiated, poorly differentiated/anaplastic, and medullary thyroid cancer, focusing on circulating tumor cells, circulating free nucleic acids, and extracellular vesicles.

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Germana Rappa ◽  
Caterina Puglisi ◽  
Mark Santos ◽  
Stefano Forte ◽  
Lorenzo Memeo ◽  
...  

The diagnostic approach to thyroid cancer is one of the most challenging issues in oncology of the endocrine system because of its high incidence (3.8% of all new cancer cases in the US) and the difficulty to distinguish benign from malignant non-functional thyroid nodules and establish the cervical lymph node involvement during staging. Routine diagnosis of thyroid nodules usually relies on a fine-needle aspirate biopsy, which is invasive and often inaccurate. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify novel, accurate, and non-invasive diagnostic procedures. Liquid biopsy, as a non-invasive approach for the detection of diagnostic biomarkers for early tumor diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring, may be of particular benefit in this context. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a consistent source of tumor-derived RNA due to their prevalence in circulating bodily fluids, the well-established isolation protocols, and the fact that RNA in phospholipid bilayer-enclosed vesicles is protected from blood-borne RNases. Recent results in other types of cancer, including our recent study on plasma EVs from glioblastoma patients suggest that information derived from analysis of EVs from peripheral blood plasma can be integrated in the routine diagnostic tumor approach. In this review, we will examine the diagnostic and prognostic potential of liquid biopsy to detect tumor-derived nucleic acids in circulating EVs from patients with thyroid carcinoma.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 2221
Author(s):  
Luis Enrique Cortés-Hernández ◽  
Zahra Eslami-S ◽  
Bruno Costa-Silva ◽  
Catherine Alix-Panabières

In cancer, many analytes can be investigated through liquid biopsy. They play fundamental roles in the biological mechanisms underpinning the metastatic cascade and provide clinical information that can be monitored in real time during the natural course of cancer. Some of these analytes (circulating tumor cells and extracellular vesicles) share a key feature: the presence of a phospholipid membrane that includes proteins, lipids and possibly nucleic acids. Most cell-to-cell and cell-to-matrix interactions are modulated by the cell membrane composition. To understand cancer progression, it is essential to describe how proteins, lipids and nucleic acids in the membrane influence these interactions in cancer cells. Therefore, assessing such interactions and the phospholipid membrane composition in different liquid biopsy analytes might be important for future diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. In this review, we briefly describe some of the most important surface components of circulating tumor cells and extracellular vesicles as well as their interactions, putting an emphasis on how they are involved in the different steps of the metastatic cascade and how they can be exploited by the different liquid biopsy technologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Memarpour ◽  
Ghazaleh Khalili-Tanha ◽  
Awa Alizadeh Ghannad ◽  
Masoud Sharifian Razavi ◽  
Mona Joudi ◽  
...  

: Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer is one of the most common cancers globally. Genetic and epigenetic mechanisms are involved in its pathogenesis. The conventional methods for diagnosis and screening for GI cancers are often invasive and have other limitations. In the era of personalized medicine, a novel non-invasive approach called liquid biopsy has been introduced for the detection and management of GI cancers, which focuses on the analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA). Several studies have shown that this new approach allows for an improved understanding of GI tumor biology and will lead to an improvement in clinical management. The aim of the current review is to explore the clinical applications of CTCs and ctDNA in patients with GI cancer.


Lab on a Chip ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 3790-3801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Jennifer Crow ◽  
Divya Lella ◽  
Xin Zhou ◽  
Glenson Samuel ◽  
...  

A microwell-patterned microfluidic digital mRNA analysis platform enables PCR-free, single-molecule detection of EWS-FLI1 fusion transcripts in EVs towards liquid biopsy-based non-invasive diagnosis of Ewing Sarcoma.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (31) ◽  
pp. 5650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Okajima ◽  
Shuhei Komatsu ◽  
Daisuke Ichikawa ◽  
Mahito Miyamae ◽  
Takuma Ohashi ◽  
...  

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tandra R. Chaudhuri ◽  
Zhihong Cao ◽  
Cristina Rodríguez-Burford ◽  
Albert F. LoBuglio ◽  
Kurt R. Zinn

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4500
Author(s):  
Isabel Heidrich ◽  
Thaer S. A. Abdalla ◽  
Matthias Reeh ◽  
Klaus Pantel

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide. It is a heterogeneous tumor with a wide genomic instability, leading to tumor recurrence, distant metastasis, and therapy resistance. Therefore, adjunct non-invasive tools are urgently needed to help the current classical staging systems for more accurate prognostication and guiding personalized therapy. In recent decades, there has been an increasing interest in the diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive value of circulating cancer-derived material in CRC. Liquid biopsies provide direct non-invasive access to tumor material, which is shed into the circulation; this enables the analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTC) and genomic components such as circulating free DNA (cfDNA), which could provide the key for personalized therapy. Liquid biopsy (LB) allows for the identification of patients with a high risk for disease progression after curative surgery, as well as longitudinal monitoring for disease progression and therapy response. Here, we will review the most recent studies on CRC, demonstrating the clinical potential and utility of CTCs and ctDNA. We will discuss some of the advantages and limitations of LBs and the future perspectives in the field of CRC management.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 2514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Lodewijk ◽  
Marta Dueñas ◽  
Carolina Rubio ◽  
Ester Munera-Maravilla ◽  
Cristina Segovia ◽  
...  

Bladder Cancer (BC) represents a clinical and social challenge due to its high incidence and recurrence rates, as well as the limited advances in effective disease management. Currently, a combination of cytology and cystoscopy is the routinely used methodology for diagnosis, prognosis and disease surveillance. However, both the poor sensitivity of cytology tests as well as the high invasiveness and big variation in tumour stage and grade interpretation using cystoscopy, emphasizes the urgent need for improvements in BC clinical guidance. Liquid biopsy represents a new non-invasive approach that has been extensively studied over the last decade and holds great promise. Even though its clinical use is still compromised, multiple studies have recently focused on the potential application of biomarkers in liquid biopsies for BC, including circulating tumour cells and DNA, RNAs, proteins and peptides, metabolites and extracellular vesicles. In this review, we summarize the present knowledge on the different types of biomarkers, their potential use in liquid biopsy and clinical applications in BC.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (25) ◽  
pp. 5627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taisuke Imamura ◽  
Shuhei Komatsu ◽  
Daisuke Ichikawa ◽  
Tsutomu Kawaguchi ◽  
Mahito Miyamae ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (24) ◽  
pp. 9651
Author(s):  
Andrea Soltysova ◽  
Tatiana Sedlackova ◽  
Dana Dvorska ◽  
Karin Jasek ◽  
Pooneh Chokhachi Baradaran ◽  
...  

Despite outstanding advances in diagnosis and the treatment of primary uveal melanoma (UM), nearly 50% of UM patients develop metastases via hematogenous dissemination, driven by the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Despite the failure in UM to date, a liquid biopsy may offer a feasible non-invasive approach for monitoring metastatic disease progression and addressing protracted dormancy. To detect circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in UM patients, we evaluated the mRNA expression of EMT-associated transcription factors in CD45-depleted blood fraction, using qRT-PCR. ddPCR was employed to assess UM-specific GNA11, GNAQ, PLCβ4, and CYSLTR2 mutations in plasma DNA. Moreover, microarray analysis was performed on total RNA isolated from tumor tissues to estimate the prognostic value of EMT-associated gene expression. In total, 42 primary UM and 11 metastatic patients were enrolled. All CD45-depleted samples were negative for CTC when compared to the peripheral blood fraction of 60 healthy controls. Tumor-specific mutations were detected in the plasma of 21.4% patients, merely, in 9.4% of primary UM, while 54.5% in metastatic patients. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of differentially expressed EMT genes showed significant differences between monosomy 3 and disomy 3 tumors. Newly identified genes can serve as non-invasive prognostic biomarkers that can support therapeutic decisions.


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