Next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy may be used for detection of residual disease and cancer recurrence monitoring in dogs

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy test for cancer monitoring in dogs.

Samples: Pre- and postoperative blood samples were collected from dogs with confirmed cancer diagnoses originally enrolled in the CANcer Detection in Dogs (CANDiD) study. A subset of dogs also had longitudinal blood samples collected for recurrence monitoring.

Methods: All cancer-diagnosed patients had a preoperative blood sample in which a cancer signal was detected and had at least 1 postoperative sample collected. Clinical data were used to assign a clinical disease status for each follow-up visit.

Results: Following excisional surgery, in the absence of clinical residual disease at the postoperative visit, patients with Cancer Signal Detected results at that visit were 1.94 times as likely (95% CI, 1.21 to 3.12; P = .013) to have clinical recurrence within 6 months compared to patients with Cancer Signal Not Detected results. In the subset of patients with longitudinal liquid biopsy samples that had clinical recurrence documented during the study period, 82% (9/11; 95% CI, 48% to 97%) had Cancer Signal Detected in blood prior to or concomitant with clinical recurrence; in the 6 patients where molecular recurrence was detected prior to clinical recurrence, the median lead time was 168 days (range, 47 to 238).

Clinical relevance: Next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy is a noninvasive tool that may offer utility as an adjunct to current standard-of-care clinical assessment for cancer monitoring; further studies are needed to confirm diagnostic accuracy in a larger population.