CeGaT Introduces CancerMRD: Personalized and Non-Invasive Tumor Monitoring

(PresseBox) (Tübingen, 28.01.2025) 

CeGaT GmbH, a global provider of genetic diagnostics and sequencing services, proudly announces the launch of CancerMRD, a new service for the individualized monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with solid tumors. CancerMRD dynamically tracks changes in disease during therapy and detects recurrences earlier than conventional imaging methods. This non-invasive monitoring tool ultimately helps improve patient prognosis.

Overcoming a Key Challenge in Cancer Monitoring
Minimal residual disease remains a critical challenge in cancer care: Even after successful treatment, undetected tumor cells can persist in the body, increasing the risk of recurrence. These cells often evade conventional detection methods but release circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) into the bloodstream, offering an early signal of disease activity.

“CancerMRD bridges a critical information gap in oncology by switching monitoring to a molecular level. Where imaging reaches its limits, CancerMRD detects subtle changes in ctDNA and redefines how tumor burden is monitored," states Dr. Dr. Saskia Biskup, Managing Director and Co-founder of CeGaT.

Tissue-Informed Approach to Dynamic Insights
CancerMRD integrates three key innovations and benefits, offering a unique and unmatched approach to patient-centric cancer monitoring:

• personalized approach: The creation of a tumor fingerprint, which is unique to each patient and tumor, forms the baseline for all follow-up monitoring. CancerMRD’s tissue-informed approach leverages state-of-the-art whole genome sequencing (WGS) to identify tumor-specific variants, enabling highly tailored tracking of disease progression.
• non-invasive monitoring: Subsequent monitoring only requires liquid biopsy and uses the existing fingerprint for comparison. Thus, CancerMRD reduces patient burden as invasive tissue biopsies or radiation exposure can be bypassed.  
• dynamic insights: Repeatable tests enable continuous assessment of ctDNA levels over time. These provide physicians with dynamic data to adapt therapies and make timely decisions.

Key Applications of CancerMRD
As a powerful tool to monitor overall tumor burden, CancerMRD’s key applications include:

• observation of changes in disease course: CancerMRD assesses the impact of therapy on patients with stable disease and low tumor burden, enabling necessary adjustments. Additionally, CancerMRD can detect tumor regression.

• early detection of relapse: Our service identifies recurrence at a molecular level, which is especially important for patients in remission. If CancerMRD detects a relapse, it allows for prompt intervention.

Strengthening CeGaT‘s Tumor Diagnostics Portfolio
CancerMRD complements CeGaT’s comprehensive tumor diagnostics portfolio as a monitoring service for long-term tracking of the overall tumor burden. CeGaT also offers CancerDetect^® as a monitoring tool: It is a highly sensitive hotspot mutation-centered panel that can be used for cases where knowing a specific variant's presence is crucial.  For example, this includes cases where the variant serves as a drug target or when tracking the emergence of resistance mutations over time. 

For more information and detailed insights into the new service, please visit our website.