Measuring Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB) in Plasma from mCRPC Patients Using Two Commercial NGS Assays

Sci Rep. 2019 Jan 14;9(1):114. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37128-y.

Abstract

Tumor tissue mutational burden (TMB) has emerged as a promising predictive biomarker for immune checkpoint therapy. Measuring TMB from circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) found in plasma is attractive in tissue-constrained indications. We compared the performance of two plasma-based commercial TMB assays including the effect of two different collection methods. Our findings suggest that the two plasma based TMB assays are highly correlated and they are also both correlated with a tissue-based TMB assay for relatively high TMB samples. The two collection methods are also found to be very comparable. Plasma-based TMB assays may be mature enough to be clinically useful in mCRPC and potentially other indications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor / blood*
  • Circulating Tumor DNA / blood*
  • Humans
  • Immunotherapy
  • Liquid Biopsy
  • Male
  • Mutation
  • Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant / blood
  • Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant / genetics*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant / therapy*
  • Tumor Burden*

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Circulating Tumor DNA