ASCO 2025: Optimizing Breast Cancer Surveillance With ctDNA Testing: Transforming Early Detection and Recurrence Monitoring

Panelists discuss the evolving landscape of breast cancer surveillance, focusing on circulating tumor DNA testing for molecular residual disease detection, recent clinical data supporting its use, and practical strategies for integrating this technology into posttreatment monitoring.

EP. 1: Evolving Standard-of-Care Treatment Strategies Across Breast Cancer Subtypes

June 24th 2025

Panelists discuss how current breast cancer surveillance remains largely symptom-driven and reactive, often missing early metastatic recurrence, and how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing offers a promising shift toward proactive, personalized monitoring by enabling earlier detection of molecular residual disease (MRD) and guiding timely therapeutic interventions.

EP. 2: Molecular Residual Disease Detection and Surveillance Protocols in Practice

June 24th 2025

Panelists discuss how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing for molecular residual disease (MRD) offers a sensitive tool for detecting early breast cancer recurrence before clinical symptoms appear while emphasizing the importance of shared decision-making, patient education, and clinical trial referral in the absence of standardized guidelines for managing ctDNA-positive results.

EP. 3: Optimizing MRD Monitoring: Integrating Clinical and Genomic Insights

July 1st 2025

Panelists discuss how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) monitoring provides a valuable lead time for detecting recurrence in early-stage breast cancer—especially hormone receptor–positive cases—yet requires careful patient counseling and integration with traditional prognostic tools, as its use for guiding treatment decisions remains nuanced and dependent on evolving clinical evidence.

EP. 4: Personalizing Early Breast Cancer Care: ctDNA Surveillance Insights From E-BLIS and I-SPY 2

July 1st 2025

Panelists discuss how emerging data from studies like E-BLIS and I-SPY 2 validate circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as a powerful prognostic tool in early breast cancer, showing it can detect recurrence months before imaging and potentially refine risk stratification beyond traditional markers, though its role in guiding treatment decisions remains under active investigation.

EP. 5: Monitoring Response in Real Time: ctDNA as a Predictive and Surrogate Marker in Early Treatment

July 8th 2025

Panelists discuss how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is becoming a vital biomarker in breast cancer, with its dynamic changes guiding personalized treatment decisions, serving as a surrogate end point in trials, enabling earlier detection of progression, and offering a less-invasive monitoring tool that complements imaging—especially benefiting patients with hard-to-monitor disease or those who are frail.

EP. 6: Beyond Traditional Biomarkers: Prognostic Impact of ctDNA in the Posttreatment Setting

July 8th 2025

Panelists discuss how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) serves as a highly predictive prognostic biomarker in breast cancer, guiding personalized treatment intensification and informing important patient decisions while enhancing risk stratification and motivating proactive care despite ongoing research into its impact on long-term outcomes.

EP. 7: Personalizing Posttreatment Care: Insights From DARE, LEADER , and Emerging MRD Trials

July 15th 2025

Panelists discuss ongoing studies exploring circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) use in the adjuvant breast cancer setting to detect recurrence earlier and guide therapy, highlighting advances in assay sensitivity, the choice between tumor-informed and tumor-agnostic tests, and the challenge of turning ctDNA’s strong prognostic value into actionable, outcome-improving interventions.

EP. 8: Applying ctDNA Insights to Real-World Decisions and Tumor Evolution

July 15th 2025

Panelists discuss the real-world challenges of managing patients with positive circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) but no radiographic evidence of disease, emphasizing treatment intensification, genomic profiling for resistance mutations, dynamic monitoring, and the integration of ctDNA with imaging and biopsy to guide personalized breast cancer care.

EP. 9: Patient Selection and Implementation Strategies for MRD Testing

July 22nd 2025

Panelists emphasize that as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing becomes more integrated into clinical practice, careful interpretation, tailored testing schedules, and ongoing provider education are key to its effective use in personalized breast cancer care.

EP. 10: Clinical Implications of Ultrasensitive MRD Detection With Next-Gen ctDNA Assays

July 22nd 2025

Panelists highlight that advances in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing now enable detection of cancer at ultralow levels far earlier than traditional methods, offering new opportunities for timely intervention while emphasizing that negative results, though increasingly reliable, still require cautious interpretation to guide personalized treatment decisions.

EP. 11: Looking Ahead: The Future of MRD Testing and Breast Cancer Management and Insights From ASCO 2025

July 22nd 2025

Panelists note that detecting low-level circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) despite normal imaging presents a clinical challenge, requiring personalized management that balances early intervention with patient-centered communication, as this molecular signal offers a valuable window to detect and treat microscopic disease before overt recurrence.

x