stepupiors

Team effort of STEPUPIORS members Aleksandra Stanojevic, Katarina Mirjacic Martinovic, Mladen Marinkovic, Teodora Cato, Ana Vuletic, Ana Djuric, Luka Lisica, Milena Cavic and Radmila Jankovic was supported by the constant help of the dedicated staff from the company Novos d.o.o. to enable the first analysis of this kind in Serbia.

Dr Ana Djuric, Dr Mladen Marinkovic, Dr Milena Cavic from IORS and Dr Paul Van Der Leest and Dr Remond Fijneman from NKI AVL participated at the first international symposium on ctDNA response evaluation in solid tumors held in Aarhus, Denmark on March 14-15, 2025. The meeting brought together experts from multiple disciplines (medical oncology, surgery, radiology, radiotherapy, molecular diagnostics, molecular biology, health economics) and countries, to learn about the progress made and to discuss the challenges ahead. It was discussed how ctDNA can be used to evaluate treatment response during systemic therapy, highlighting that patient-centered outcomes must be prioritized.

Multiple systematic reviews presented by members of the Danish Clinical Network for ctDNA-RECIST Research showed that ctDNA holds great promise across the tumor types. Exploring ctDNA biology, it was noted that there is a need to better understand ctDNA shedding and elimination in different clinical situations. Methodological validation and standardization remain critical for widening the implementation of this initiative. Defining ctDNA response and progression criteria was presented as essential for both dPCR and NGS based methods. Ongoing trials—MONDRAN, DIAMOND, ctDNA-RECIST and PRELUCA were presented and are paving the way for innovative response monitoring strategies. Pragmatic clinical trial design was presented and opened new alternative options to be explored in the future. Concurrent imaging and liquid biopsy testing was determined to be an optimal way forward at the moment, while more work is needed on ctDNA-related quality of life studies.

Dr Remond Fijneman gave a lecture “ctDNA Response evaluation criteria by NGS and clinical utilization” and chaired a session “Defining ctDNA-response criteria”.

Meeting conclusions included the need for establishing a more specific network of researchers and institutes in the form of a COST action, as well as initiating a prospective multicentric and multinational clinical trial assessing the clinical utility of ctDNA-RECIST criteria. IORS researchers were prominent participants as the only team from Serbia at the meeting.