Independent briefing
A daily briefing of sourced, fact-only updates on molecular residual disease, ctDNA, and MRD-relevant biomarkers across cancer types. Edited by Alan Tan, a genitourinary hematologist-oncologist. MRD and biomarker items are listed ahead of other news from the same stretch of days.
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Edited by Alan Tan, MDLatest Breast items. Open the Breast page.
How it works
“No evidence of disease” means the scan did not show a tumor. Alan Tan, MD, puts the gap this way, as an illustration rather than a cutoff: “To the human eye, a clear scan can still hide around 200 million cancer cells.” MRD testing, especially ultrasensitive MRD, looks for that leftover signal in blood.
How testing worksNov 15, 2026 ET
No update is dated today. The latest verified items are below, with MRD and biomarker reports ranked first.
Pinned items, then MRD and biomarker reports, then newer dates.
The Journal of Liquid Biopsy. November 2026. doi 10.1016/j.jlb.2026.100540.
The Journal of Liquid Biopsy
Initial results from the prospective HER2-CR registry (NCT06663787) in 37 evaluable patients with long-term CR/PR on anti-HER2 therapy for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer found that 129 of 142 plasma samples (91%) were negative on Signatera Genome and 30 of 37 patients (81%) were negative at every assessment; all 23 patients without radiographic residual disease remained ctDNA-negative, while persistent positivity was more often accompanied by progression.
ESMO Open
A JAMA Oncology analysis published online August 13, 2026, of 1,026 plasma samples from 159 patients in the c-TRAK TN surveillance cohort found that tissue-free ctDNA detection was associated with recurrence (HR 27.2; 95% CI 13.7 to 54.2), and median lead time to recurrence was 7.6 months with the tissue-free assay versus 7.1 months with a multivariant tumor-informed assay.
JAMA Oncology