One Common and Confounding Flaw in Standard Liquid Biopsy Testing
Let’s take an example: Let’s say your tumor tissue test shows a mutated KRAS-G12V gene. G – Glycene – can be coded by GGT, GGC, GGA, and GGG. But let’s say that, when designing their test, ‘Company x’ did a sample study and found that 90% of patients they studied (usually a small sample size, at that) had GGG to start with.
So they designed their test with the assumption that everyone has that GGG to start with. But any patient might actually have started with a GGT, or GGC, or GGA – and, if you didn’t test to make sure, what would that do to your test results? It would naturally lead to a false reading on your baseline ratio. And your tumor ratio would be off, too.
In other words, you’d think you were using state-of-the-art diagnostics and personalized medicine. And you’d assume that, if the treatment wasn’t working, it was just bad luck for the patient – when, in reality, because your test (and, therefore, your treatment plan), was based on a false assumption, your treatment would not really be targeted for that patient at all. And you would not get the benefit that you should expect from a targeted therapy.
This all too common situation leads to a far less successful treatment plan than you could have provided. It also leads to a lot of wasted money and time, as well as unnecessary side-effects, for the patient.
We’ve seen, and continue to see, this happen far too often. So, rather than waiting around for other companies to fix these confounding issues, we opened up our own lab (Liquid Biopsy Labs) and designed a new type of test that gives you the proof that your treatment choice is the right one.
Now you have more understanding of why most liquid biopsy companies say that their tests are only good for discovery purposes and not for monitoring cancer progression.
Because all they can tell you is that a mutation is present. They cannot tell you if it’s a cancer-causing mutation, or if it’s how your cells are normally. And, without that very important detail, there is a very real possibility – 75%, in fact! – that any treatment decisions you make could be wrong.