The benefits of cfDNA detection for cancer
The Circulating Cell-Free DNA (cfDNA) has been viewed by many researchers in the field of medicine as a high technology with benefits in the detection and treatment of tumors or rather a cancer. One of the pros is that the cfDNA, which is the cellular DNA circulating in the blood freely as well as other fluids in the body, is released from sources like apoptotic cells during healthy situations, necrotic cells during cancer situations and from the maternal plasma in the fetal DNA.
The fragments for this cfDNA are about 170 bps in terms of length and contain a short half-life of approximately 15 minutes to about several hours. The discovery and use of cfDNA have caused a revolution in the field of medical research and clinical applications, therefore.
Besides, another benefit of its use its that several features of cfDNA, for instance, concentration, integrity, stability, tend to be considerably different in cancer compared to the healthy body cells. Research has also expressed that a proportion of the cfDNA known as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), can be applied in the determination of somatic mutations types and copy number variations (CNV) not forgetting epigenetic alterations that are features of cancer cells.
To add on this, the analysis of this cfDNA in the maternal blood can give valuable information concerning chromosomal aneuploidies, for instance, trisomy 8, trisomy 13, and trisomy 21 in the fetus. This implies that the capability to precisely quantify and measure the cfDNA as a biomarker possess an excellent possibility for the detection of cancer and real-time monitoring, also known as liquid biopsy. This can also be very useful in prenatal screening, that is, the non-massive prenatal testing, NIPT.
Reference
Phallen, J., Sausen, M., Adleff, V., Leal, A., Hruban, C., White, J., … & Speir, S. (2017). Direct detection of early-stage cancers using circulating tumor DNA. Science translational medicine, 9(403).