Cancer patients who have exhausted all other options can be matched to trials of personalised medicines by a “liquid biopsy” blood test, a study shows.
A third of patients given experimental treatments in this way saw their tumours shrink in “very promising” early results that add to mounting evidence of the potential of real-time genetic analysis to guide cancer care.
Researchers hope the findings will give NHS patients a better chance of successfully trying new medicines and could help to pave the way for routine use of liquid biopsies to pick treatments.
Blood tests that look for fragments of DNA shed by tumours are an exciting area of cancer research. They are increasingly used to diagnose the disease, decide on treatment and check if it