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Opinion|Videos|May 12, 2025

The Impact of Tumor Heterogeneity in Ovarian Cancer

A panelist discusses how tumor heterogeneity (both spatial and temporal) affects molecular testing reliability in ovarian cancer, highlighting that although most biomarkers show little heterogeneity, newer approaches like liquid biopsies can provide a more comprehensive genetic profile of the entire tumor burden.

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Impact of Tumor Heterogeneity on Testing Reliability

Although ovarian cancer shows relatively limited spatial and temporal heterogeneity compared to other cancers, considerations include the following:

  • More recent biopsies are preferred for testing when available.
  • Blood-based testing (liquid biopsies) can provide genomic information by sampling circulating tumor DNA from the entire tumor burden.
  • Cell-free DNA testing is increasingly useful but cannot yet replace tissue-based testing for protein expression markers like HER2 and folate receptor alpha.

Research continues to develop more comprehensive testing through liquid biopsy approaches.

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