Aug 2026· Cancer Medicine· Vol 15· 0 citations· 186 references
Medicine
TL;DR
This review summarizes advances in liquid biopsy technologies, focusing on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs).
Abstract
Ovarian cancer (OC) remains a lethal gynecological malignancy with challenges in early diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and overcoming drug resistance. Liquid biopsy, a noninvasive approach analyzing tumor‐derived components in bodily fluids, has emerged as a promising tool in OC management. This review summarizes advances in liquid biopsy technologies, focusing on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs). ctDNA enables minimally invasive assessment for diagnosis, prognosis, treatment guidance (e.g., BRCA1/2‐targeted therapy), minimal residual disease (MRD) detection, and monitoring of tumor evolution. CTCs, particularly clusters, provide insights into metastasis and therapeutic response. Emerging modalities such as tumor‐educated platelets (TEPs), circular RNAs (circRNAs), and exosomes and protease activity‐based liquid biopsy also show diagnostic and prognostic potential. Despite technical challenges like standardization and sensitivity, liquid biopsy holds significant promise for personalized OC care, with ongoing efforts to translate these technologies into clinical practice.
This review provides a comprehensive overview of the key analytes employed in liquid biopsy, including circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells, microRNAs, extracellular vesicles, and protein biomarkers with particular emphasis on their translational relevance in breast cancer.
Pritam Saha Podder, Debasree Bhadra, Canio Martinelli et al.· Exploration of Targeted Anti...· 0 citations
Overall, liquid biopsy represents a transformative strategy that complements conventional tissue biopsy and supports more personalized, dynamic, and evidence-based management of solid tumors.
Ricardo Fernando Rincón Veloz, Ana Milena Murgas Acevedo, Gerardo Amaya Villagran et al.· International science journa...· 0 citations
Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of global cancer mortality, underscoring the urgent need for effective early detection. Current screening methods, primarily colonoscopy, are limited by invasiveness and low population adherence, while traditional serological biomarkers lack sufficient sensitivity and specificity for reliable early-stage diagnosis. This review examines recent advances in liquid biopsy components as promising noninvasive biomarkers for CRC screening and diagnosis. Key circulating analytes are discussed, including circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNA, tumor-educated platelets, exosomes, and circulating RNAs. These markers collectively provide a systemic, real-time molecular profile of tumors, offering valuable information on tumor presence, stage, and biological characteristics beyond that achieved by traditional single-marker approaches. Integrating multiple biomarkers into diagnostic panels shows promise for significantly improving detection accuracy compared to conventional biomarkers like carcinoembryonic antigen. However, translating this potential into clinical practice faces substantial challenges, including the standardization of techniques, validation in large prospective cohorts, and demonstration of improved patient outcomes through interventional studies. Addressing these challenges is essential for realizing the transformative potential of liquid biopsies in personalized CRC management. By enabling earlier, less invasive, and more-accurate diagnosis, liquid biopsy represents a paradigm shift in screening that could ultimately reduce CRC mortality through timely intervention.
Xiaoman Bai, Sa-Chu-La Bao, Xu-Qian Zhang et al.· World Journal of Gastrointes...· 0 citations
Glioblastoma remains highly aggressive, with limited treatment response and poor prognosis. Tissue biopsy (TB) is invasive and fail to capture tumor heterogeneity or temporal dynamics. Liquid biopsy (LB) provides a noninvasive alternative for real-time monitoring via circulating biomarkers, including cell-free DNA (cfDNA), circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and extracellular vesicles (EVs) in plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), urine, and saliva. This review advances beyond prior biomarker catalogs by delivering a quantitative technology scorecard comparing cfDNA-, CTC-, and EV-based platforms in terms of sensitivity, clinical actionability, cost, and scalability. We introduce a multimodal decision matrix and an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven fusion pipeline integrating fragmentomics, EV proteomics, and CTC transcriptomics to enhance minimal residual disease detection and guide precision neuro-oncology.
Olawumi Giwa, Yonit Leykind, I. Altman et al.· Trends in Biotechnology· 0 citations
Liquid biopsy has emerged as a powerful non-invasive tool in precision oncology, providing real-time insights into tumor evolution, host immune responses, and dynamic changes in the tumor immune microenvironment. By enabling minimally invasive sampling, it can overcome several limitations of conventional tissue biopsy. This review summarizes the major biological sources and components of liquid biopsy, including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), exosomes, and circulating immune cells, and discusses their value as dynamic indicators of interactions during cancer immunotherapy. Particular attention is given to immune-related biomarkers associated with immune checkpoints, immunosuppressive mechanisms, and immune escape, including circulating immune cell populations, and inflammatory cytokine profiles. We further examine their potential applications in predicting treatment response, monitoring immune-related adverse events, assessing minimal residual disease, and detecting acquired resistance. In addition, recent technological advances that are accelerating the clinical translation of liquid biopsy are highlighted, including multi-omics integration, microfluidic platforms. These approaches have improved the sensitivity, accuracy, and multidimensional characterization of tumor- and immune-derived biomarkers. Nevertheless, biological heterogeneity, limited assay standardization, and the lack of large-scale prospective validation studies continue to restrict widespread clinical implementation. Overall, immune-related biomarkers detected through liquid biopsy offer considerable potential for the longitudinal monitoring of the tumor immune microenvironment and may improve non-invasive cancer diagnosis, therapeutic monitoring, and personalized immunotherapy in the era of precision oncology.
Lai Wen, Xin-Hui Wang, Jin-Ming Liu et al.· Frontiers in Cell and Develo...· 0 citations
Breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed cancer and a leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women worldwide, underscoring the need for accurate, minimally invasive biomarkers to support precision oncology. Conventional tissue biopsy remains the standard for molecular characterization but is limited by its invasiveness, inability to capture spatial and temporal tumor heterogeneity, and challenges in serial monitoring. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), a tumor-derived fraction of cell-free DNA, has emerged as a promising liquid biopsy biomarker capable of providing real-time genomic information throughout disease progression. This narrative review examines recent advances in ctDNA biology, analytical technologies, clinical applications, current limitations, and future directions in breast cancer management. A structured literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar identified relevant English-language publications from 2015 to 2026. Current evidence indicates that highly sensitive platforms, including digital PCR, BEAMing, and next-generation sequencing, can detect clinically actionable alterations in genes such as PIK3CA, ESR1, TP53, ERBB2, AKT1, and BRCA1/2. ctDNA has demonstrated particular utility in identifying minimal residual disease, monitoring therapeutic response, detecting emerging resistance mechanisms, and guiding targeted treatment selection in advanced breast cancer. However, applications in early cancer detection, population screening, and artificial intelligence-assisted clinical decision-making remain investigational. Widespread clinical implementation is constrained by low ctDNA abundance in early-stage disease, analytical variability, limited assay standardization, and cost considerations. Continued technological innovation, prospective multicenter validation, standardized testing protocols, and evidence-based clinical guidelines are essential to fully integrate ctDNA into routine precision breast cancer care.
E. I. Obeagu, C. Okafor· Breast Cancer: Basic and Cli...· 0 citations
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