PhD defence I.E. (Inge) de Kruijff

For years, all types of cancer are subject of clinical investigation. Nowadays, the focus is especially on determination of an up-to-date status of the characteristics of a patient’s tumor. The chapters of this thesis emphasize the importance of characterization of tumor cells or tumor DNA and the role that liquid biopsies can play for this characterization. In chapter 2 characterization of CD146 was described on primary tumor tissues of breast cancer patients. The systematic review in chapter 3 describes the use of liquid biopsies in muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Chapter 4 describes the enumeration and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). And in chapter 5 and 6 characterization of CTCs was investigated in metastatic breast cancer patients. Overall, these studies show that liquid biopsies are promising tools for characterization of a patients’ tumor. Enumeration and characterization of CTCs and characterization of circulating tumor DNA hold great promise as prognostic and predictive biomarkers. There are also still some limitations, but with the rapid advance of technology in this area, like diagnostic leukapheresis and isolation of single and/or pure CTCs, it is anticipated that in the next few years liquid biopsies can be further developed to become clinically relevant and applicable tools that can help in providing personalized medicine to patients.

Due to corona, the PhD defences do not take place publicly in the usual way in the Senate Hall or in the Professor Andries Querido Room. The candidates will defend their dissertation either in a small group or online.