ArticleMolecular oncology2021
Comparison of variant allele frequency and number of mutant molecules as units of measurement for circulating tumor DNA.
Article in Molecular oncology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 26 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.
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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.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Clinical Practice Guideline for Blood-based Circulating Tumor DNA Assays.Annals of laboratory medicine · 2024Guideline
- Post-surgery level of circulating DNA in stage III colon cancer patients: Impact on the reliability of minimal residual disease detection.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Harmonising ctDNA Measurement in Haematological Malignancies: Traceability, Commutability and Reporting.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- From Early Detection To Advanced Therapies: How Circulating Tumor DNA Is Transforming the Care of Colorectal Cancer.Current oncology reports · 2025Review
- Cross-Sectional Analysis of Metabolic Tumor Burden Detected by F-18 FDG PET/CT and Circulating Tumor DNA in Advanced Breast Cancer.Cancer medicine · 2025Article
- A perspective review on the systematic implementation of ctDNA in phase I clinical trial drug development.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2025Review
- Longitudinal genomic profiling using liquid biopsies in metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC following first line immunotherapy.NPJ precision oncology · 2025Article
- Correlation between variant allele frequency and mean tumor molecules with tumor burden in patients with solid tumors.Molecular oncology · 2024Article
- Recent advances in ctDNA detection using electrochemical biosensor for cancer.Discover oncology · 2024Review
- Dynamics of RAS Mutations in Liquid Biopsies in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Patients-Case Series and Literature Review.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Review
- The Challenge to Stabilize, Extract and Analyze Urinary Cell-Free DNA (ucfDNA) during Clinical Routine.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Calibration of cell-free DNA measurements by next-generation sequencing.American journal of clinical pathology · 2023Article
- Article
- Potential unreliability of ALK variant allele frequency in the efficacy prediction of targeted therapy in NSCLC.Frontiers of medicine · 2023Article
- An Overview of Circulating Cell-Free Nucleic Acids in Diagnosis and Prognosis of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Diagnostic value of liquid biopsy in the era of precision medicine: 10 years of clinical evidence in cancer.Exploration of targeted anti-tumor therapy · 2023Review
- The Clinical Utility of Droplet Digital PCR for Profiling Circulating Tumor DNA in Breast Cancer Patients.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Targeted Sequencing of Plasma-Derived vs. Urinary cfDNA from Patients with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.Cancers · 2022Article
- Monitoring and adapting cancer treatment using circulating tumor DNA kinetics: Current research, opportunities, and challenges.Science advances · 2022Review
- Circulating Tumor DNA in Pediatric Cancer.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Quantification of tumor-specific variants (TSVs) in cell-free DNA is rapidly evolving as a prognostic and predictive tool in patients with cancer. Currently, both variant allele frequency (VAF) and number of mutant molecules per mL plasma are used as units of measurement to report those TSVs. However, it is unknown to what extent both units of measurement agree and what are the factors underlying an existing disagreement. To study the agreement between VAF and mutant molecules in current clinical studies, we analyzed 1116 TSVs from 338 patients identified with next-generation sequencing (NGS) or digital droplet PCR (ddPCR). On different study cohorts, a Deming regression analysis was performed and its 95% prediction interval was used as surrogate for the limits of agreement between VAF and number of mutant molecules per mL and to identify outliers. VAF and number of mutant molecules per mL plasma yielded greater agreement when using ddPCR than NGS. In case of discordance between VAF and number of mutant molecules per mL, insufficient molecular coverage in NGS and high cell-free DNA concentration were the main responsible factors. We propose several optimization steps needed to bring monitoring of TSVs in cell-free DNA to its full potential.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.