KRAS Mutations Retrospectively Detected in Circulating Tumor DNA Across Cancer Types

Investigators at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Oregon Health and Science University, and Guardant Health describe KRAS-G12C mutations in circulating tumor DNA from individuals assessed by Guardant360 liquid biopsy testing. As they report in JCO Precision Oncology, the researchers analyzed data for 80,911 patients tested from July 2014 to late June 2019, uncovering KRAS-G12C mutations in more than 7 percent of non-small cell lung cancers and across 3.7 percent of all tumors tested. "[O]ur study demonstrates the feasibility of using ctDNA to identify KRAS-G12C mutations across solid tumors, with the highest detection rate in lung cancer as previously reported in the literature," the team writes, noting that it "found very high positive predictive value between tissue and liquid biopsies performed within [six] months of each other."