The MRG lab team has recently advanced its research into developing a novel blood test to detect multiple myeloma. The liquid biopsy test also has the potential in the future to give clinicians an indication of how a patient is responding to treatment.
Multiple myeloma (MM), an incurable cancer of the plasma cells which are normally found in the bone marrow, affects more than 1900 Australians each year. MM is characterised by multifocal tumour deposits throughout the bone marrow. Invasive bone marrow biopsies are carried out to form a ‘mutational profile’ of the disease in a patient. Unfortunately these biopsies do not capture the mutational heterogeneity across the multiple tumour sites.
The liquid biopsy test is being developed as a more accurate, less invasive alternative to current bone marrow biopsy. This will challenge the accepted way of evaluating MM.
The study has been published recently in Leukemia.
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