When it comes to liquid biopsy, not all tests are equal. In fact, many suffer from challenges, such as low sensitivity, expensive equipment requirements, or the need for error-prone enhancement steps like pre-amplification. Can these obstacles be overcome? Certainly – and a new polymerase chain reaction technique known as single-color digital PCR can help. The assay requires very little blood, carries a price tag much lower than sophisticated sequencing methods, and bypasses the pre-amplification step and its concomitant risk of error. It’s possible that this technique, and others like it, may offer a new avenue for lower-cost, higher-accuracy liquid biopsy.
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