Circulating tumor cells provide genomic snapshot of breast cancer

The genetic fingerprint of a metastatic cancer is constantly changing, which means that the therapy that may have stopped a patient's cancer growth today, won't necessarily work tomorrow. Although doctors can continue to biopsy the cancer during the course of the treatment and send samples for genomic analysis, not all patients can receive repeat biopsies. Taking biopsies from metastatic cancer patients is an invasive procedure that it is frequently impossible due to the lack of accessible lesions. Research published in the journal Breast Cancer Research suggest that tumor cells circulating in the blood of metastatic patients could give as accurate a genomic read-out as tumor biopsies. Read more here.