ctDNA transiting into urine is ultrashort and facilitates noninvasive liquid biopsy of HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer
Bhambhani et al.
The finding, in our words
Urine contains ultrashort circulating tumour DNA fragments that have transited from blood, which can be used for non-invasive detection of HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer. This suggests urine may serve as a practical liquid biopsy matrix for cancers outside the urinary tract.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
In a Belgian colposcopy referral cohort, a study found that 66.6% of women preferred home-based first-void urine self-sampling over physician-taken samples, and 96.6% found the Colli-Pee UCM FV-5010 device easy to use. This supports patient-centric, decentralised screening, though results are limited to this specific referral population.
Hendrickx et al., Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · source ↗
This review summarises how emerging HPV detection methods including CRISPR/Cas systems, droplet digital PCR and isothermal amplification, combined with self-collected vaginal swabs and liquid biopsy from urine or blood, could improve screening acceptability and enable point-of-care testing compared with conventional approaches that require invasive sampling and centralised laboratory infrastructure.
Shi et al., Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · source ↗
DNA methylation levels in self-collected cervicovaginal samples fell two years after treatment in patients who remained free of recurrent cervical cancer. This shows that home-collected urine and cervicovaginal specimens can be used to assess methylation markers for surveillance of cervical cancer recurrence.
Schaafsma et al., International journal of cancer · source ↗
Adding polyethylene glycol to first-void urine before centrifugation markedly improved cell-free DNA recovery in the pellet, whereas low-speed centrifugation alone removed cellular DNA while keeping cell-free DNA in the supernatant. Pseudovirions pelleted reliably under all conditions, but the study revealed substantial variation between self-collected samples, highlighting the need for standardised protocols in decentralised HPV screening programmes.
Téblick et al., European journal of medical research · source ↗
In first-void urine collected with Colli-Pee, the extraction method influenced HPV and human DNA yield more than the collected volume did: standardising processing matters at least as much as standardising volume.