CtDNA detects residual disease after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and guides adjuvant therapy in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

ABSTRACT: The diagnostic accuracy of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) for detecting molecular residual disease (MRD) after multimodal treatment remains unclear. In a prospective cohort of 132 patients with locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) followed by clinical response evaluation and surgery, tumor-informed personalized-panel and fixed-panel ctDNA assays are applied to serial blood samples. Personalized ctDNA assay demonstrates a superior baseline detection rate (99.2%) and outperforms fixed panels in diagnosing post-nCRT residual disease. Integrating personalized ctDNA with conventional clinical diagnostic methods increases sensitivity for predicting non-pathological complete response (non-pCR) from 78.4%-80.7% to 92.0%-93.2%. Pa

SUBMITTER: Liu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12490249 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature