title: Validation of blood testing for K-ras mutations in colorectal and pancreatic cancer.
abstract: K-ras mutation in a tumour is a powerful negative predictor for treatment success. Identifying tumour K-ras mutation is complex, and could be simplified by an appropriate blood test. Clinical studies were identified in which K-ras mutation status was assessed in both blood and tumour to ascertain whether blood K-ras mutation is predictive of tumour K-ras mutation. Between 29% and 100% of patients with a tumour K-ras mutation in 11 studies presented the same mutation in peripheral blood. Only 5/272 patients presented blood K-ras mutation in the absence of the same tumour mutation, possibly due to sampling errors. K-ras mutation in blood appears to indicate K-ras mutation in tumour, while the absence of blood K-ras mutation does not prove lack of mutation in the tumour. This suggests that a blood test for the detection of tumour K-ras may be possible, and could direct cancer treatment strategies.
authors.affiliation: MedInsight Research Institute, Telz Stone, Israel. moshe@medinsight.org
authors.forename: Moshe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rogosnitzky
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Danks
mesh_terms: D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D011905:Genes, ras; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results