Liquid biopsy of blood-based biomarkers in quickly gaining significance in oncological diagnostics and cancer monitoring. In cases where anatomical position of cancer or poor state of the patient limit the use of tumour tissue biopsy, liquid biopsy presents itself as the best alternative, due to its non-invasiveness and repeatability. An additional benefit of liquid biopsy is its ability to provide clinicians with a better insight into the genetic profile of cancer, thus helping with therapeutic decision-making. Blood-based biomarkers are also useful in discovery of metastatic disease, private mutations of secondary lesions and subsequent patient prognosis determining, while also being better at predicting relapse due to minimal residual disease than current methods. Most focus is currently on circulating tumour DNA as a biomarker. ctDNA are nucleic acid fragments in blood, originating from cancer cells, capable of providing us with the information about the cancer genome. Besides ctDNA, most prominent biomarkers are circulating tumour cells and exosomes. In my thesis i will present the crucial features of mentioned biomarkers, technologies and methods of liquid biopsy, as well as the meaning of liquid biopsy on the example of non-small cell lung carcinomas, a group of cancers that are both very common and also suitable for monitoring with liquid biopsy.
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