Fig. 2: Representative longitudinal liquid biopsy monitoring and imaging for NPC patients having different treatment outcomes. | British Journal of Cancer

Fig. 2: Representative longitudinal liquid biopsy monitoring and imaging for NPC patients having different treatment outcomes.

From: Clinical utility of serial analysis of circulating tumour cells for detection of minimal residual disease of metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Fig. 2

a PET-CT imaging of NPC patient 5 showed partial metabolic response (PMR) in the middle and progressive metabolic disease (PMD) at the end of treatment. Serial liquid biopsy monitoring by plasma EBV1-4, CTC1-4 enumeration and CTC4 blood mutation load (16.1 mutations/Mb) all remained positive during treatment. b CTC serial monitoring findings of NPC patient 10 showed concordant results of disease burden compared to the PMR result of radiologic imaging in contrast to the negative mid- and post-treatment plasma EBV results. CTC2 and CTC4 enumeration data remained positive during and at the end of treatment and the CTC NGS assay detected 31.7 mutations/Mb in CTC4. c Radiologic imaging for NPC patient 14 showed complete metabolic response (CMR), but the CTC4 enumeration detected positive CTC counts and NGS analysis, with a high blood mutation load (6.6 mutations/Mb), providing a lead time of 5 months prior to imaging showing minimal residual disease; in contrast the EBV4 results only showed 7 EBV copies/ml. d The minimal residual disease of NPC patient 17, with CMR and ambiguous EBV findings, indicated by both the EBV4 plasma assay (53 copies/ml) and blood mutation load of CTC4 (5.7 mutations/Mb).

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