Biomedicines (Jan 2024)

Cell-Free Tumor DNA Detection-Based Liquid Biopsy of Plasma and Bile in Patients with Various Pancreatic Neoplasms

  • Mark Jain,
  • David Atayan,
  • Tagir Rakhmatullin,
  • Tatyana Dakhtler,
  • Pavel Popov,
  • Pavel Kim,
  • Mikhail Viborniy,
  • Iuliia Gontareva,
  • Larisa Samokhodskaya,
  • Vyacheslav Egorov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines12010220
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
p. 220

Abstract

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The key challenge of cell-free tumor DNA (cftDNA) analysis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is overcoming its low detection rate, which is mainly explained by the overall scarcity of this biomarker in plasma. Obstructive jaundice is a frequent event in PDAC, which enables bile collection as a part of routine treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of KRAS-mutated cftDNA detection-based liquid biopsy of plasma and bile in patients with pancreatic neoplasms using digital droplet PCR. The study included healthy volunteers (n = 38), patients with PDAC (n = 95, of which 20 had obstructive jaundice) and other pancreatic neoplasms (OPN) (n = 18). The sensitivity and specificity compared to the control group were 61% and 100% (AUC-ROC—0.805), and compared to the OPN group, they were 61% and 94% (AUC-ROC—0.794), respectively. Bile exhibited higher cftDNA levels than plasma (248.6 [6.743; 1068] vs. 3.26 [0; 19.225] copies/mL) and a two-fold higher detection rate (p p p = 0.005) but not in bile (p > 0.05). Bile is a promising alternative to plasma in patients with obstructive jaundice, at least for the diagnostic purposes of liquid biopsy.

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