MMD PCR for lung cancer driver mutations

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Personalised medicine aims to predict in advance which patients are most likely to benefit from, or not respond well to, a particular therapy. However, current methods have significant limitations in terms of both sensitivity and cost. Tumour biopsies, particularly from lung cancers, often provide only a tiny amount of material. Furthermore there may be change in mutations with time, and therefore repeated testing is needed at intervals during treatment, but repeated biopsy is highly undesirable for some tumour types. It has recently been discovered that DNA from tumours leaks into blood and can be detected, if the method is sufficiently sensitive. GeneFirst is developing a new real-time PCR based technology for detection of multiple defined mutations in a single closed-tube with greatly increased sensitivity. This is potentially suitable for detecting mutations using circulating cell-free DNA in blood.