ctDNA detection in microfluidic platform: A promising biomarker for personalized cancer chemotherapy

Abstract

Early detection and characterization of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) can reveal mint of comprehensive biological insights from indicating the presence of tumor, identifying mutational changes of malignant cells, and allowing precision or targeted therapy together with monitoring disease progression, treatment resistance, and relapse of the disease. Apart from these, one of the greatest axiomatic implications of ctDNA detection is that it provides a new shed of light as noninvasive liquid biopsy as a replaceable procedure of surgical tumor biopsy. Despite the tremendous potential of ctDNA in cancer research, there remains a paucity of quantitative study on ctDNA detection and analysis. The majority of previously published microfluidic-based studies have focused on circulating tumor cell (CTC) detection and have failed to address the potential of ctDNA. The studies on microfluidic ctDNA detection are not consistent might be due to the complexity of ctDNA isolation as they present in low concentration in blood plasma. Researchers need to leverage the ability of microfluidic system for ctDNA analysis so that the significant enigma about cancer can be resolved effectively. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of ctDNA as cancer biomarker for liquid biopsy and provides an overview of the current laboratory as well as microfluidic techniques for ctDNA detection. This paper also attempts to show the emergence of new strands of microfluidic ctDNA detection and analysis for personalized cancer chemotherapy.