Liquid Biopsies Enable Pediatric Brain Cancer Monitoring

Liquid biopsies may enable physicians to monitor treatment effectiveness for children with brain cancer, enabling detection of progression earlier than MRI imaging, according to a small study published Oct. 15 in Clinical Cancer Research. The authors say this is the first evidence of the feasibility and clinical utility of ctDNA for longitudinal surveillance in pediatric brain cancers. Pediatric diffuse midline glioma (DMG) are highly malignant tumors with poor clinical outcomes, particularly for the estimated 70 percent of patients that harbor the histone 3 p.K27M (H3K27M) mutation. Currently, imaging and clinical-based disease monitoring are the standard of care. Complete surgical resection of DMG is not possible and while biopsy at presentation can be feasible, rebiopsy at the time of tumor progression is rare due to risks, sensitive anatomic location, costs, and clinical regulations. “The inability to accurately assess disease response and treatment-related molecular changes confer significant challenges, particularly for emerging biologically targeted strategies such as immunotherapy,” write the authors led by Eshini Panditharatna, from Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C. Researchers assessed the clinical utility of H3K27M in ctDNA of 48 newly diagnosed patients with DMG to evaluate the feasibility of tumor genomic profiling of biopsies and treated patients. Mutations […]