Circulating Cell-Free DNA Integrity for Breast and Prostate Cancer: What Is the Landscape for Clinical Management of the Most Common Cancers in Women and Men?

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) and prostate cancer (PCa) are major health problems for women and men worldwide. Although therapeutic approaches have increased, the complexity associated with their heterogeneity and progression requires better ways to monitor them over time. Cell-free DNA integrity (cfDI) represents a viable alternative to needle biopsy and has the potential to be representative of cancer at all stages. In addition to the advantages of liquid biopsy in terms of cost and reduced invasiveness, cfDI can be used to detect repetitive DNA elements (e.g., ALU and LINE1), which could circumvent the problem of mutational heterogeneity in BC and PCa. In this review, we summarise the latest findings on cfDI studies in BC and PCa. The results show that cfDI has the potential to improve early detection, metastasis, and recurrence of BC, while limited studies prevent its clinical value in PCa from being fully defined. However, it is expected that further studies in the near future will help to introduce the use of cfDI as another biomarker for the clinical monitoring of BC and PCa patients.