Dr Semaan on Liquid Biopsy Epigenomic Profiling for the Detection of Sarcomatoid RCC

Karl Semaan, MD, MSc, postdoctoral research fellow, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the utility of liquid biopsy epigenomic profiling for the detection of sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Sarcomatoid differentiation features are associated with a worse prognosis in RCC, with an approximate overall survival of 6 months in these patients. Semaan and his colleagues developed a liquid biopsy assay using chromatin immunoprecipitation and sequencing for H3K27ac. The assay displayed an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of up to 0.92, showing the potential to overcome the tumor heterogeneity that makes detecting sarcomatoid features difficult with other approaches, Semaan says.