The following is a summary of “Novel Methods to Assess Tumor Burden and Minimal Residual Disease in Genitourinary Cancers,” published in the December 2024 issue of Urology by Barata et al.
Molecular diagnostics have advanced the assessment of disease burden and minimal residual disease (MRD) in genitourinary (GU) cancers. Conventional imaging has limitations in detecting clinically occult disease, leading to potential false-negative or false-positive results.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the role of molecular diagnostics in assessing disease burden and MRD in GU cancers.
They conducted a literature review of basic, translational, and clinical research studies published between 1980 and 2024. The studies were sourced from the MEDLINE (via PubMed) and Scopus databases. They focused on emerging radiographic and molecular tools, including biomarker-informed clinical trials aiming to quantify disease at lower thresholds and integrate MRD into clinical practice for patients with GU.
The results showed that novel radiotracers, including prostate-specific membrane antigen and carbonic anhydrase IX, are being evaluated for clinical use and trials to improve tumor management. Molecular tools like circulating tumor cells and cell-free circulating tumor DNA from plasma and urine offer potential for MRD detection, enabling genomic and transcriptomic analyses to understand disease evolution.
Investigators observed the emergence of novel MRD detection techniques and the rapid development of studies using iterative MRD detection to guide therapeutic options in GU tumors, though the full potential of MRD applications remained to be fully realized.
Source: europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(24)02705-2/abstract
