Dr. Husain on the Increased Use of and Challenges With Utilizing Liquid Biopsies

Hatim Husain, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, discusses the increased use of and challenges with utilizing liquid biopsies.

Liquid biopsies are being widely adopted in the upfront setting because it is becoming increasingly important to get genomic test results in an efficient and more minimally invasive fashion, says Husain.

Time to test results have been one of the biggest challenges with tissue-based genomic sequencing but liquid biopsies help facilitate a shorter turnaround time, Husain adds. However, there are certain caveats with liquid biopsy. For example, if a patient has a negative test result, it is critical that tumor sampling be assessed. This is largely because there are false negative rates due to the amount of shedding a tumor may have, the location of the tumor, and the sites of metastasis, concludes Husain.