Charting intratumor heterogeneity from bench to bedside
Leading cancer researchers map how tumors evolve heterogeneously, translating this knowledge into practical tools like liquid biopsies that could detect minimal residual disease and guide adaptive therapy.
Wan, McGranahan, and Swanton (The Francis Crick Institute) synthesize two decades of ITH research—covering genomic instability, clonal evolution, microenvironmental heterogeneity, and multiomic longitudinal profiling—into a roadmap for evolution-aware cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. The review argues that ctDNA-based liquid biopsy and multiregion sequencing can translate ITH insights into actionable clinical tools including MRD detection and adaptive therapy design.
What the study was
- Study design
- review
- Population
- Cancer patients broadly; focus on solid tumours with multiomic longitudinal profiling data (review)
- Category
- Early Detection
- Maturity
- Validated
- Journal
- Nature Cancer
Why it surfaced
Authoritative review in Nature Cancer by the world's leading ITH researchers (Swanton lab, TRACERx); directly relevant to early_cancer_detection (liquid biopsy, early detection) and precision_oncology; synthesizes rapidly evolving field with direct implications for ctDNA-based cancer detection and resistance prediction; Swanton leads NHS Galleri trial and GRAIL scientific board—review carries significant field-shaping weight.
A plain-language summary of published research — not medical advice. Talk to a clinician about your own care.