EACR 2025: Congress: Innovative Cancer Science

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis has emerged as a promising, minimally invasive tool for cancer detection and monitoring. However, in localized prostate cancer, ctDNA detection remains highly challenging due to the low tumor DNA fraction in circulation. To overcome this limitation, we develop a multimodal approach that integrates the assessment of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) modifications, as well as fragmentomic characteristics, to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of ctDNA detection in early-stage prostate cancer. In this talk, preliminary data on differential methylation and fragmentomics signatures of prostate cancer will be presented.

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, comprising of several subtypes with distinct biological features, defined based on expression of the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2 with distinct treatments and clinical outcomes Breast cancer subtypes are derived from tissue biopsy and therefore repeat biopsies are rarely performed.  Developing a blood test to diagnose the subtype of the cancer could substantially improve treatment and outcome of patients. Epigenetic marks such as methylation profiling have been identified as promising biomarkers for this research.