What is Targeting Residual Cancer?

While many cancers are diagnosed when they are curable, a few patients will experience recurrence at a distant site during their lifetime. This is due to the fact that after cancer treatment, any remaining cancer cells in the body can become active and begin to multiply, resulting in a relapse of the disease. It is commonly known as the minimal or measurable residual disease (MRD), and it is detectable but potentially incurable.

The use of prognostic molecular tools may be able to directly screen patients who are most likely to have MRD, but the relationship between these predictors and MRD detection remains unknown. Another challenge is the lack of a definitive MRD assay with established clinical utility, as well as the difficulty in selecting potential interventions due to limitations in understanding MRD biology.