Clinical correlates of blood-derived circulating tumor DNA in pancreatic cancer

Background Treatment outcomes for patients with advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remain dismal. There are unmet needs for understanding the biologic basis of this malignancy using novel next-generation sequencing technologies. Herein, we investigated the clinical utility of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) (the liquid biopsy) in this malignancy. Methods ctDNA was analyzed in 112 patients with PDAC (54–73 genes) and tissue DNA in 66...