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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;298(17):1993-1994.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Atlanta—Detection of cancer through bodily fluid analysis has been gaining interest as researchers develop sensitive techniques that may be capable of spotting cancer markers at early stages of disease. Scientists at the American Association for Cancer Research's second International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development in September discussed several recent studies that have successfully detected tumor-specific DNA in the blood.

While efforts to measure circulating tumor DNA are at an early stage, researchers hope that such methods may eventually have an impact in the clinic. "The amount of biopsy material that's available to make a diagnosis is very limited, and serum and plasma . . . can provide surrogates for appropriately directed therapy," said David Sidransky, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore.

A variety of research efforts aimed at improving diagnostic testing for cancer are focused on detecting tumor-specific DNA in the blood.

BEAMING TECHNOLOGY

Detecting circulating tumor DNA, . . . [Full Text of this Article]