Monitoring Of Circulating Tumor Dna As Minimal Residual Disease In Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

Background: Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) can be cured with frontline therapy, but the prognosis of patients with relapse in the modern era is poor. Radiology scans (CT and PET) are commonly used as surveillance tools after therapy but do not improve outcomes and are associated with long-term health risks. Interim scans have also been used to identify early treatment failures, but are limited by false positives. Reliable predictive biomarkers that predict relapse may improve clinical outcomes. LymphoSIGHTª is a high-throughput DNA sequencing method that can detect and quantify circulating tumor DNA as minimal residual disease (MRD). We have previously reported its ability to detect circulating tumor DNA in serum after frontline therapy in DLBCL (Roschewski ASH 2013). Here, we analyzed the ability of serum MRD to predict both early treatment failure and relapse from remission in a large cohort of newly diagnosed DLBCL patients treated with curative intent.