Breast Cancer Liquid Biopsy Results Presented At World CDx Conference In Boston

GUILDFORD, United Kingdom, Sept. 9, 2015

Dr Julie E. Lang, M.D., F.A.C.S., Associate Professor of Surgery, specialising in breast cancer and notably in molecular profiling of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in breast cancer, will present results from USC's work with ANGLE's Parsortix system at today's World CDx Conference in Boston.

USC have compared the RNA molecular results of a liquid biopsy using the Parsortix system (simple blood test) with those from the biopsy of metastatic sites (the secondary cancer locations) in metastatic breast cancer patients.

The main findings from the first four patients are as follows:

1. In all of the patients analysed, the Parsortix system provided highly enriched CTCs suitable for rare cell amplification and RNA Seq analysis to detect relevant biomarkers and potentially discover novel biomarkers in breast cancer. 
   
2. The CTCs for the Parsortix liquid biopsy had similar patterns of gene expression to the traditional biopsy of cancer cells from metastatic sites.
   
3. There was some degree of heterogeneity in the CTCs, which suggests they may provide additional clinical information beyond that found at a single metastatic site and may be representative of multiple metastatic sites. 

Metastatic biopsies are invasive, often requiring surgery, and therefore can cause the patient considerable additional complications.  Furthermore, such metastatic biopsies can be expensive and may delay aspects of the patient's ongoing treatment while they recover from surgery. 

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the second most common overall. More than 1.7 million cases of breast cancer were recorded in 2012, accounting for around 12 per cent of all new cancer cases and 25 per cent in women (Source: World Cancer Research Fund International).

The Parsortix system offers the potential to replace the metastatic biopsy for breast cancer with a simple blood test that can be repeated as often as needed, thereby providing "real-time" information for therapy selection reflecting disease progression.