Advancements in liquid biopsy technology for cancer detection

Recent medical research has introduced new methods for detecting cancer through liquid biopsies, focusing on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs).

A prospective study at Houston Methodist Hospital evaluated a personalized, tumor-informed ctDNA assay for detecting cancer recurrence in patients who underwent liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma or cholangiocarcinoma. The assay demonstrated 100% specificity and 75% sensitivity. When combined with standard-of-care biomarkers like alpha-fetoprotein and CA19-9, the sensitivity increased to 100%.

Separately, researchers from Taiyuan University of Technology and Shanxi Bethune Hospital developed a label-free microfluidic chip integrated with deep learning to identify CTCs. This platform uses inertial microfluidics and YOLOv8-based AI to enrich and recognize tumor cells from bright-field images without relying on specific cell-surface markers, addressing the challenge of isolating rare tumor cells from blood.