Dr. Oberstein on the Utilization of CtDNA in Metastatic CRC

Paul E. Oberstein, MD, associate professor, Department of Medicine, director, Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology Program, assistant director, Pancreatic Cancer Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone Health, discusses the utilization of ctDNA in metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC).

By helping detect the burden of disease, ctDNA can provide insight to how much chemotherapy a patient needs, as well as their risk of recurrence, Oberstein says. While ctDNA has shown the ability to predict risk of recurrence, it is still unknown if it can predict how a patient will respond to chemotherapy or what the best agent would be to combine with chemotherapy, Oberstein explains.

These answers can only be obtained through clinical trials, and there are multiple trials in progress aiming to find how to use information from ctDNA to decide whether to escalate or deescalate therapy, Oberstein concludes.