Non-invasive Monitoring of Cancer Progression

Dear colleague,

Cancer is a clonal disease characterized by genomic heterogeneity. While the initiating events occur in a single cell, additional events bestow it with a survival advantage, giving rise to a progeny of cells with the same genomic footprint. Over time, these cells undergo clonal evolution and expansion under the selective pressure of genomic instability, immune surveillance and exposure to therapies. The accumulation of additional genomic events, for example, mutations, copy number alterations and translocations, as well as epigenetic changes, can be tracked by studying tumor biopsies over the course of therapy. The extensive characterization of tumor genomes in recent years has demonstrated that incurable cancer is not a single disease entity, but rather a family of related cells that can rapidly adapt to prevent cell death.

While much has been learned by studying cancer genomes from tumor tissue, minimally invasive strategies of monitoring the presence of tumor and tumor evolution are needed. Cancer cells and/or their DNA, referred to as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), can be readily detected in peripheral blood. The presence of residual cancer cells, or minimal residual disease (MRD) after therapy is not only prognostic, but in some circumstances, can change clinical management. 

This Special Issue of Cancers will highlight the different approaches used in the non-invasive monitoring of cancer progression. 

Dr. Nathalie A. Johnson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cell free DNA
• circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)
• minimal residual disease (MRD)
• flow cytometry
• next generation sequencing
• single cell sequencing
• clonal evolution
• non-invasive monitoring
• liquid biopsies