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Review
. 2019 Jun 19;11(6):852.
doi: 10.3390/cancers11060852.

Liquid Biopsy Approach for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Etienne Buscail  1   2 , Charlotte Maulat  3   4 , Fabrice Muscari  5   6 , Laurence Chiche  7   8 , Pierre Cordelier  9 , Sandrine Dabernat  10 , Catherine Alix-Panabières  11 , Louis Buscail  12   13
Affiliations
Review

Liquid Biopsy Approach for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Etienne Buscail et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is a public health problem because of its increasing incidence, the absence of early diagnostic tools, and its aggressiveness. Despite recent progress in chemotherapy, the 5-year survival rate remains below 5%. Liquid biopsies are of particular interest from a clinical point of view because they are non-invasive biomarkers released by primary tumours and metastases, remotely reflecting disease burden. Pilot studies have been conducted in pancreatic cancer patients evaluating the detection of circulating tumour cells, cell-free circulating tumour DNA, exosomes, and tumour-educated platelets. There is heterogeneity between the methods used to isolate circulating tumour elements as well as the targets used for their identification. Performances for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer vary depending of the technique but also the stage of the disease: 30-50% of resectable tumours are positive and 50-100% are positive in locally advanced and/or metastatic cases. A significant prognostic value is demonstrated in 50-70% of clinical studies, irrespective of the type of liquid biopsy. Large prospective studies of homogeneous cohorts of patients are lacking. One way to improve diagnostic and prognostic performances would be to use a combined technological approach for the detection of circulating tumour cells, exosomes, and DNA.

Keywords: KRAS oncogene; circulating cell free tumour DNA; circulating tumour cells; exosomes; extracellular vesicles; liquid biopsy; pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Clinical validity of circulating tumour elements in pancreatic cancer patients as reported in published major clinical studies. Yellow circles: absolute numbers of publications; Blue circles: number of publications with a significant correlation between diagnosis and the presence of circulating tumour elements; orange circles: publications with a significant correlation between response to neoadjuvant therapy and the presence of circulating tumour elements; light red circles: publications with a significant correlation between prognosis and the presence of circulating tumour elements. CTCs: circulating tumour cells; ctDNA: circulating tumour DNA; EVs: extracellular vesicles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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