Liquid Biopsy-Guided Interventional Oncology: A Proof of Concept with a Special Focus on Radiotherapy and Radiology

Although the role of liquid biopsy (LB) to measure minimal residual disease (MRD) in the treatment of epithelial cancer is well known, the biology of the change in the availability of circulating biomarkers arising throughout treatments such as radiotherapy and interventional radio-oncology is less explained. Deep knowledge of how therapeutic effects can influence the biology of the release mechanism at the base of the biomarkers available in the bloodstream is needed for selecting the appropriate treatment-induced tumor circulating biomarker. Combining existing progress in the LB and interventional oncology (IO) fields, a proof of concept is provided, discussing the advantages of the traditional risk assessment of relapsing lesions, limitations, and the timing of detection of the circulating biomarker. The current review aims to help both interventional radiologists and interventional radiation oncologists evaluate the possibility of drawing a tailor-made board of blood-based surveillance markers to reveal subclinical diseases and avoid overtreatment

Distinctive phenogroup to differentiate diagnosis of cardiac myxoma vs cardiovascular disease examining blood-based circulating cell biomarkers

Abstract Cardiac myxoma (CM) is a potentially life-threatening disease because frequently asymptomatic or debuts with aspecific manifestations. Definitive diagnosis is established by histopathological assessment including tumor and endothelial cell markers. To derive a specific panel of circulating cells antigenically detectable, pre-surgery peripheral blood samples of CM patients were analyzed. Pre-surgery peripheral blood samples from patients with CM were simultaneously analyzed for Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating endothelial cells (CECs) that were matched with tumor tissue profiles and with patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) distinguishing tumor regions. Moreover, CECs values in CM patients were further matched with CEC’s levels in cardiovascular disease and control subjects. The blood-derived cytological specimens detected at least 1–3 CTCs/ml in 10 tested CM samples (p = 0.0001) showing specific CM features preserved in the central zones of the tumor. The central zone of the primary tumor, supported by a vessel density rate (55 ± 7%), with a proliferative profile of 32 ± 3% and a percentage of Calretininpos cells (p = 0.03), is the principal site of CTCs (r = 00) dissemination. The subsets of endothelial cells recognized in the blood were indifferent to their topological distribution within the tumor and corresponding PDXs. With further refinement and validation in large cohorts, multiparametric liquid biopsies can optimally integrate clinically informative datasets and maximize their utility in pre-surgery evaluation of CM patients. Blood-derived culture’s protocol provides a versatile method capable of viable analysis of CTCs of non-hematological rare tumors which conventional antibody-mediated analytical platform is unable to perform. Distinctive blood- based cell phenotype contributes to differentiate CM from other differentials assuring its prompt surgical resection by combining blood-based cell biomarkers integrated with clinically informative datasets