Liquid biopsy represents an increasingly hopeful future, with advances in favor of life.
From Spain, oncologist Emilio Alba says: “I believe that liquid biopsy is going to revolutionize everything in cancer because it will help us detect it at much earlier stages and once the person has been diagnosed it will also help us identify if things are going wrong, in a much earlier way than we do currently.”
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Alba is the director of the Medical Health Research Centre (CIMES) of the University of Malaga and of the Intercentre Clinical Management Unit of Oncology of Malaga (OncoMálaga) and recently offered his opinion on liquid biopsy, a technique that is revolutionising the detection and treatment of certain tumours.
What is liquid biopsy?
Foto: Pexels/Polina Tankilevitch
Oncologist Alba referred to liquid biopsy as the determination of certain substances that exist in the blood and that help identify diseases.
Liquid biopsy helps identify if there is a tumor and where it originated.
Emilio Alba, oncologist
“This liquid biopsy will help in the early diagnosis of cancer with just a drop of blood,” says the General Foundation of the University of Malaga.
- It is used in early diagnosis to detect the disease much earlier, with imaging technology, says Alba.
- It can also be used to see if there is residual disease after cancer surgery and in patients with metastatic cancer it is one of the fundamental elements of precision medicine.
- Liquid biopsy helps to pinpoint mutations that allow for personalized treatments.
This test has been known for some time, the Spanish specialist emphasises, because this is the mechanism used, for example, for prenatal diagnosis. In the case of cancer, it involves small fragments of circulating DNA that correlate with the presence of a tumour.
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Dr. Emilio Alba, quoted on the site of the PEAKSexplains that “when a person is diagnosed with a tumor, after surgery theoretically there should not be any tumor DNA fragments in the blood,” however, if this liquid biopsy is performed and these cells continue to be found, it helps to identify the prognosis and apply more appropriate treatments based on the results.”
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