Targeted next-generation sequencing of circulating-tumor DNA for tracking minimal residual disease in localized colon cancer.

A high percentage of patients diagnosed with localized colon cancer (CC) will relapse after curative treatment. Although pathological staging currently guides our treatment decisions, there are no biomarkers determining minimal residual disease (MRD) and patients are at risk of being undertreated or even overtreated with chemotherapy in this setting. Circulating-tumor DNA (ctDNA) can to be a useful tool to better detect risk of relapse.One hundred and fifty patients diagnosed with localized CC were prospectively enrolled in our study. Tumor tissue from those patients was sequenced by a custom-targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel to characterize somatic mutations. A minimum varian…