Rationale: Aging of the general population results in an increasing number of patients who need to be cared for by a decreasing number of health care professionals. To ensure sustainable and patient-centred health care in the near future, rebalanced hospital-based and home-based care is needed. Following surgery of a primary tumour or metastases thereof, patients are offered blood-based follow-up in the hospital, which is necessary to detect recurrence but represents a major burden on the current health care system. The more recently discovered, highly specific circulating tumour-derived DNA fragments (ctDNA) have high potential as a new biomarker and clinical implementation of ctDNA in CRC patient care is expected in the future. However, feasibility of ctDNA detection in blood collected through automated capillary sampling had not yet been investigated.
Objective: to determine the feasibility of ctDNA analysis of blood obtained using automated capillary sampling.
Study design: This proof-of-concept study aims to determine technical feasibility of ctDNA detection in small volumes of capillary blood in 35 patients. Venous blood from the same patients will be used as reference
Study population: All study subjects need to be 21 years or older and provide informed consent to participate in the study. Patients with growing colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) can be included.
Main study endpoint: The primary outcome measure of the study is the agreement between ctDNA measurements in venous versus capillary blood to determine the feasibility of ctDNA analysis through automated capillary blood sampling.
