ArticleJournal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR2020
Cross-sectional analysis of circulating tumor DNA in primary colorectal cancer at surgery and during post-surgery follow-up by liquid biopsy.
Article in Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Blood-Based Circulating Tumor DNA for Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Digestive diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Pooled it
- Association of ctDNAJournal of gastrointestinal oncology · 2026Article
- Sensitive cell-free DNA assay for accurate detection of RAS and BRAF mutations in liquid biopsies of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer: Final results of the multicentric ColoBEAM study.Oncology letters · 2026Article
- Site-Specific Mutations on KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF Corelate With the Frequency of ctDNA in Colorectal Cancer.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Monitoring changing patterns in HER2 addiction by liquid biopsy in advanced breast cancer patients.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2024Article
- A panorama of colon cancer in the era of liquid biopsy.The journal of liquid biopsy · 2024Review
- Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis through Breath Test Using a Portable Breath Analyzer-Preliminary Data.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Calibration of cell-free DNA measurements by next-generation sequencing.American journal of clinical pathology · 2023Article
- Analysis of Circulating Tumor DNA in Synchronous Metastatic Colorectal Cancer at Diagnosis Predicts Overall Patient Survival.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Using Circulating Tumor DNA as a Novel Biomarker to Screen and Diagnose Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Review
- Post-operative ctDNA monitoring in stage I colon cancer: A case report.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
- Liquid biopsy with droplet digital PCR targeted to specific mutations in plasma cell-free tumor DNA can detect ovarian cancer recurrence earlier than CA125.Gynecologic oncology reports · 2021Article
- Review
- Clinical Applications of Circulating Tumor Cells and Circulating Tumor DNA as a Liquid Biopsy Marker in Colorectal Cancer.Cancers · 2021Review
- Detection of Tumor DNA in Human Plasma with a Functional PLL-Based Surface Layer and Plasmonic Biosensing.ACS sensors · 2021Article
- Precision Medicine and Melanoma: Multi-Omics Approaches to Monitoring the Immunotherapy Response.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- The Promise of Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the Management of Early-Stage Colon Cancer: A Critical Review.Cancers · 2020Review
- TMPRSS2, a SARS-CoV-2 internalization protease is downregulated in head and neck cancer patients.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLiquid biopsy (LB) in early-stage, non-metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) must be sensitive enough to detect extremely low circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) levels. This challenge has been seldom and non-systematically investigated.
methodsNext generation sequencing (NGS) and digital PCR (dPCR) were combined to test tumor DNAs (tDNAs) and paired ctDNAs collected at surgery from 39 patients, 12 of whom were also monitored during the immediate post-surgery follow up. Patients treated for metastatic disease (n = 14) were included as controls.
resultsNGS and dPCR concordantly (100% agreement) called at least one single nucleotide variant (SNV) in 34 tDNAs, estimated differences in allelic frequencies being negligible (±1.4%). However, despite dPCR testing, SNVs were only detectable in 15/34 (44.1%) ctDNAs from patients at surgery, as opposed to 14/14 (100%) metastatic patients. This was likely due to striking differences (average 10 times, up to 500) in ctDNA levels between groups. NGS revealed blood-only SNVs, suggesting spatial heterogeneity since pre-surgery disease stages, and raising the combined NGS/dPCR sensitivity to 58.8%. ctDNA levels at surgery correlated with neither tumor size, stage, grade, or nodal status, nor with variant abundance in paired tDNA. LB sensitivity reached 63.6% when ctDNA was combined with CEA. Finally, persistence and absence of ctDNA on the first conventional (month 3) post-surgery follow-up were associated with fast relapse and a disease-free status in 3 and 7 patients, respectively.
conclusionsA simple clinical NGS/dPCR/CEA combination effectively addresses the LB challenge in a fraction of non-metastatic CRC patients.
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Registered trials
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