Tempus xM MRD Assay

Tempus said this week that it has added a new minimal residual disease (MRD) assay to its cancer testing menu, dubbed xM. The tumor-naive, plasma-based test is designed to detect circulating tumor DNA in the blood of patients with early stage colorectal cancer after surgery. Tempus described the test as available for research use only, but also said in a statement that it is designed "to identify and surveil patients with low levels of circulating tumor DNA who are at risk of recurrence and may benefit from more intensive or novel therapy post-surgery."

The company described the test as offering a binary MRD assessment based on both DNA methylation and specific genomic variants, with adjunct algorithms to filter out potential artifacts including clonal hematopoiesis and germline variants.