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The science behind the liquid biopsies has been thoroughly tested at various centres all over the world and validation has been done in comparison.
Shahid Akhter – ETHealthWorld – In an interview with ETHealthworld, Dr R K Deshpande, Consultant Onco Surgeon, Asian Cancer Institute, Mumbai, talks on how liquid biopsy has proven to be better in diagnosing of malignant tumour. Edited excerpts:
How do you define liquid biopsy?
Liquid biopsy is the study of the genetic characters using the DNA segments which the cancer tumour throws in the circulating blood of the patients.
This is done normally by taking the blood as sample in a special medium and then studying it in contradistinction with actually taking a solid biopsy from the tumour itself.
It will give exactly the same characters of the genetic mutations, confirmation of the diagnosis and give direction to further treatment as far as that tumour is concerned.
How is liquid biopsy going to be a game changer?
The study of scientific basis of liquid biopsy actually started when it was found that many of these tumours are not easily yieldable because of their heterogeneity in various platforms which means that you do a CT guided biopsy of a recurrent lung tumour and you find that the tissue report shows necrotic, inadequate tissue or no tissue at all. So you don’t get any confirmation of the diagnosis itself.
