Biopsies can be difficult and painful for cancer patients, but it is very important to precisely diagnose the disease and determine the best course of treatment.
Many researches have been done in the past and recently researchers of University of California reported that a new blood-based "liquid biopsy" could be a revolutionary alternative. Liquid biopsy can accurately detect mutations in cancer DNA; in Liquid biopsy the blood is drawn from a patient's arm to analyze DNA that tumors typically shed into the bloodstream. It provides valuable information for doctors using targeted therapies to treat cancer.
In India, the most common types of cancer are lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer. It's been known for decades that tumors release their DNA into the bloodstream, particularly in advanced cases where cancer has spread to other parts of the body. The question has always been whether this can serve as an alternative to a biopsy for diagnosis and for the assignment of appropriate targeted therapy and it’s been found that genetic analysis of blood-borne cancer DNA very accurately detected cancer-causing mutations that were also found in tumor tissue samples collected for research.
The overall result says that the liquid biopsy revealed possible treatment options for more than 63 percent of patients tested during research, including FDA-approved drugs as well as eligibility for clinical trials. The cost of a liquid biopsy could be
expensive at this point of time as compared to the traditional tissue biopsy, since a blood draw costs less than the cost of an invasive procedure and subsequent processing of dissected tissue. 
However, at this point a liquid biopsy cannot replace a tissue biopsy when it comes to an initial diagnosis of cancer. A trained medical professional or cancer specialist can tell you most of the time what kind of tumor it is based on how the cells look and behave in a tissue sample or what could be the best possible method to treat cancer at the particular stage.
The Liquid biopsy provides an easier way to keep track of treatment. You can get a blood draw basically at any time, so you can really examine the development of a patient's tumor over time.
While this study focused on gene-based cancer treatment, researchers there believes that a liquid biopsy also will prove valuable for therapies that use the body's immune system to target cancer cells.
This could prove a new wave in the technology to combat life threatening disease called cancer.
Great article.
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