Liquid Biopsy: Alternative Technique for Tissue Biopsy
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Mohammad Ali Hamidinejad,1,* Mohammad zahedi,2
1. Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Science, Student Research Committee, Iran university of medical science
2. Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Science, Student Research Committee, Iran university of medical science
- Introduction: Cancer is a growing public health threat globally, becoming one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Hence, regarding the advances in instruments and technology in recent years, researchers have gone toward the approaches that facilitate the existing challenges in screening, target therapy, early diagnosis, and prognosis in cancer patients. This review discusses recent advances and future directions of Liquid Biopsy as an Alternative Technique for Tissue Biopsy.
- Methods: This study was performed by using the collected article in English that was available on details of the main topic from 2000 to 2021 in Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science with keyword Liquid Biopsy, Cancer, tumor cell, CTC, Biomarkers. Articles were selected based on the exclusion criteria and were included in the study after reviewing.
- Results: Tissue biopsies were the primary approach for these actions in the cancer field, which is still the most used. Although the current gold standard strategy in the area of actions against cancer typically involves the utilization of tissue biopsies, nevertheless the invasive nature of tissue biopsies causes many limitations, including sensitivity and accuracy, patient risk, sample preparation, procedural costs, and invasive testing. As a result, this method is incompatible with long-term clinical monitoring. Besides, one notable disadvantage of tissue biopsies is that they fail to detect intratumoral and inter-metastatic genetic heterogeneity, reducing the test's accuracy. Liquid biopsies have a great potential to overcome these current sampling limitations. Liquid biopsy is considered a minimally invasive and new technique for detecting tumor cells and identifying any tumor-derived products in various body fluids such as peripheral blood, saliva, urine, breast milk, and cerebral spinal fluid. These tumor-derived products include circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor RNA (ctRNA), circulating tumor-derived proteins, extracellular vesicles (EVs), specifically exosomes and tumor-educated platelets (TEPs).
- Conclusion: Overall, regarding numerous studies in recent years, liquid biopsies are promising tools for cancer-related implementations, including early-stage diagnosis, screening, minimal residue disease (MRD), targeted therapy monitoring, immunotherapy monitoring, and treatment response monitoring
- Keywords: Liquid Biopsy, Cancer, Biomarkers, Early-stage Diagnosis, MRD
