Bodour Salhia
University of Southern California, USA
Title: Clinical utility of cell-free DNA methylation in managing breast cancer recurrence
Biography
Biography: Bodour Salhia
Abstract
A number of clinico-pathological criteria and molecular profi les have been used to stratify breast cancer (BC) patients into high and low risk groups. Currently, there are still no eff ective methods to determine which patients harbor micrometastatic disease aft er standard BC therapy and who will eventually develop local or distant recurrence. Cell-free (cf) DNA has attracted attention for clinical use in the context of risk prediction, prognostication and prediction of response to chemotherapy in human cancer. Several groups including ours have reported the detection of tumor-associated methylation changes in cfDNA extracted from plasma or serum. We are specifi cally interested in the use of cfDNA methylation biomarkers for the prediction of cancer metastasis in the early stage setting. Accordingly, we are validating a DNA methylation signature, referred to as CpG4C, which discriminates metastatic BC from healthy individuals or disease free survivors using a targeted bisulfi te amplicon sequencing approach. In addition, we have been investigating whether a surge of cfDNA levels aft er cytotoxic chemotherapy aff ects the sensitivity and specifi city of the CpG4C assay. Lastly, we are also working on determining the technical and biological limits of detection of CpG4C in plasma. CpG4C is a potential blood-based biomarker that could be advantageous at the time of surgery and/or aft er the completion of chemotherapy to indicate patients with micrometastatic disease who are at high-risk of recurrence, and who could benefi t from additional therapy.