Liquid Biopsy: Current Status and Future Perspectives

Dear Colleagues, 

Liquid biopsies have been heralded as a game-changer in cancer management, offering a minimally invasive, safe, and sensitive alternative or complementary approach for tissue biopsies. Although peripheral blood is the primary source of liquid biopsies, other biological fluids such as urine, saliva, and cerebrospinal fluid also represent a rich source of information through which solid cancers (and their subtypes) can be detected, identified, classified, and matched to a specific therapy. Currently, blood-based biopsy measurements focus on four main biomarker sources for cancer detection and stratification: circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), tumor-educated platelets (TEPs), and extracellular vesicles (EVs). Additionally, tumor cells continuously release diverse nucleic acids (e.g., small non-coding RNAs) and proteins, which can be found in biological fluids and linked to the presence of cancer cells. This Special Issue aims to address current advances and hurdles in implementing liquid biopsy-based diagnostics in standard clinical practice. We are particularly interested in technical advances and novel approaches for the detection, isolation, and characterization of tumor-derived molecular material released in bodily fluids. These include improved sensitivity and specificity of assays, the application of advanced computational analyses, the incorporation of multi-modal analysis approaches, and the development of automatized protocols. Authors are encouraged to submit their original research studies concerning this topic. Reviews that highlight new findings in the above areas are also welcome.

Dr. Danijela Koppers-Lalic
Prof. Dr. Vesselin Baev
Dr. Bruno Costa Silva
Guest Editors

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