At # ASH23 , Reid Merryman, MD, Dana-Farber, discussed results from a pilot study that uses circulating tumor DNA to reliably predict relapse in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
This year, I'll be presenting results from a pilot study, looking at a novel minimal residual disease assay for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma. There's a lot of interest in DL BCL in using circulating tumor DNA, which appears to be a promising biomarker. And ultimately, we'd like to use this to individualize therapy to make treatment decisions based on changes in CT DNA for individual patients. So we conducted a pilot study using a whole genome sequencing based tumor assay called Maestro. So in this essay, a patient's tumor genome is sequenced and then a personalized assay is developed using short probes. And that essay is used to assess plasma samples for evidence of CT DNA. We compared results of Maestro to an FDA approved assay called CLO and we found that Maestro was more sensitive and also resulted in longer lead time. The amount of time from detection of CT DNA to clinical relapse. The improvement in sensitivity was driven mostly by detection of CT DNA at very low levels, less than 100 parts per million. So based on our results, um we feel that Maestro assay should be tested prospectively in future clinical trials and has advantages over other CT DNA assays currently available.
