Melanoma and breast cancer (BC) patients face a high risk of recurrence and disease progression after curative surgery and/or therapeutic treatment. Monitoring for minimal residual disease (MRD) during a disease-free follow-up period would greatly improve patient outcomes through earlier detection of relapse or treatment resistance. However, MRD monitoring in solid tumors such as melanoma and BC are not well established. Here, we discuss the clinical applications of MRD monitoring in melanoma and BC patients and highlight the current approaches for detecting MRD in these solid tumors.
Keywords: Biomarkers; Breast cancer; CTCs; DTCs; Liquid biopsy; MRD; Melanoma; Micrometastases; cfDNA; cfmiR.