Liquid biopsies to better detect the spread of prostate cancer

In 10 seconds? Advances in liquid biopsy technology might allow easier and earlier detection of metastatic prostate cancer, a lethal form of the disease.

Remind me, what is a liquid biopsy? A liquid biopsy is the clinical analysis of a bodily fluid – generally, blood – as opposed to a traditional biopsy, which is the analysis of a sample of a (solid) tissue or organ. Liquid biopsies can be very useful to cancer patients because they allow for the detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA, small fragments of the tumor’s DNA) that enter into the bloodstream, without the need to do a biopsy of the tumor itself, which is a more invasive procedure and sometimes even impossible due do the tumor’s location.