5 Key Takeaways

• 1

  Liquid biopsy enables serial molecular assessment when repeat tissue sampling is difficult, supporting monitoring of tumor evolution, treatment response, and recurrence risk.

• 2

  At ASCO 2026, studies linked post-treatment ctDNA positivity with worse disease-free survival and distant recurrence across several cancer settings.

• 3

  In early triple-negative breast cancer, PREDICT-RD showed that ctDNA surveillance could detect MRD before clinical or radiographic evidence of relapse.

• 4

  Researchers are combining mutation detection with methylation profiling and fragmentomics to improve sensitivity and add biological context to MRD assessment.

• 5

  Daraxonrasib activity in KRAS-mutant and nonmutant pancreatic cancer populations suggests that some therapies may target pathway activity beyond a single mutation.