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LUNG CANCER

When can we be confident of surgical cure with ctDNA?

Tracking circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) after surgery holds promise for patient management and therapeutic intervention in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A study published by Zhang and colleagues tracks ctDNA from 261 patients with stages I–III NSCLC and suggests that the likelihood of disease relapse decreases for high-risk stage II/III patients after 18 months without ctDNA detection.

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Acknowledgements

M.J.-H. is a CRUK Career Establishment Awardee and has received funding from CRUK, IASLC International Lung Cancer Foundation, Lung Cancer Research Foundation, Rosetrees Trust, UKI NETs, NIHR and the NIHR UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.

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Correspondence to Alexander Frankell or Mariam Jamal-Hanjani.

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A.M.F. is a co-inventor on a patent application to determine methods and systems for tumour monitoring (GB2114434.0). M.J.-H. has consulted for, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board and Steering Committee of, Achilles Therapeutics, has received speaker honoraria from Astex Pharmaceuticals and the Oslo Cancer Cluster, and holds a patent, as co-inventor, (PCT/US2017/028013) relating to methods for lung cancer detection.

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Frankell, A., Jamal-Hanjani, M. When can we be confident of surgical cure with ctDNA?. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 19, 571–572 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-022-00664-8

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