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Gastrointestinal cancer

Tracking tumour evolution through liquid biopsy

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A recent study has demonstrated that serial profiling of resistance mutations in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) collected from the blood of patients with colorectal cancer can be used to track tumour evolution throughout the therapeutic course. This approach has the potential to inform personalized medicine by enabling dynamic adaptation of therapy.

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Figure 1: Evolution of KRAS-mutant subpopulations on and off anti-EGFR therapy.

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Correspondence to Charles Swanton.

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Turajlic, S., Swanton, C. Tracking tumour evolution through liquid biopsy. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 12, 565–566 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2015.153

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