Dr Jeanne Tie on How ctDNA Helps Guide Decisions in Cancer Care

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) can now allow clinicians to better understand which patients are at high risk of recurrence and should be offered intensified chemotherapy, said Jeanne Tie, MBChB, FRACP, MD, medical oncologist and associate professor at the Walter+Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Transcript

For patients who are in early stages of cancer, how can tests that analyze circulating tumor DNA help guide decisions in a way that wasn't possible before?

So, what a ctDNA can offer now is that it can detect microscopic disease after surgery and determine or identify those at a very high risk of recurrence and those at low risk of recurrence. That would guide clinicians as to who would need to be offered adjuvant chemotherapy or intensified chemotherapy, compared to those with low-risk disease who they can de-escalate or even avoid chemotherapy and its associated side effects.