The research project "Circulating Tumour Cells (CTCs) in breast cancer", supported by the Rafael del Pino Foundation and directed, first by Dr. Josep Baselga, and later by Dr. Josep Tabernero at the Hospital Vall d'Hebron, is producing, after two years of work, encouraging results that will lead to the development of a non-invasive prognostic method to assess the progress of the disease in patients with breast, colorectal and lung cancer, through the analysis of circulating DNA (cfDNA).
The method has allowed the identification of specific mutations in blood detected in the tumour samples of some of the patients in the study. The most immediate goal is to optimise the plasma collection circuit and to sequence the cfDNA in larger patient populations to assess the predictive and prognostic role of the method.