No abstract

Breast carcinoma is the most frequent and the second leading cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide. Current treatment decisions are based on tumor profiling of the initial tissue biopsy.Cancer though evolves both spatially and temporarily in a significant percentage of patients during treatment. However, sequential biopsies from the primary tumor or its metastatic sites are not either convenient or feasible in the majority of cases. In the era of precision medicine, analysis of circulating bloodbased biomarkers in the field of liquid biopsies provides an insight into the dynamic molecular profiling of the primary tumor and its metastases, in a relatively non-invasive way. The latter permits not only patient stratification but also longitudinal evaluation of treatment response, when incorporated into clinical trials. This review summarizes the results from recent and ongoing circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)based biomarker-driven clinical trials, with respect to ctDNA analysis' predictive role, both in adjuvant, neo-adjuvant, and metastatic setting. Furthermore, current challenges in ctDNA analysis applications are critically discussed, including pre-analytical and analytical issues, and future perspectives in this field, through the conduct of well-designed, multicenter, randomized, large-scale, biomarker-stratified trials, with robust statistical methods. Despite in its infancy, ctDNA analysis holds great promise as a minimally invasive tool regarding tailored, personalized treatment guidance for breast cancer patients.

Recently, immunotherapy has shown promising results in solid tumors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review of published literature synthesizing all the available data and evaluating both the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in endometrial cancer. The present study was performed in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Eligible articles were identified by searching the MEDLINE and ClinicalTrials.gov databases, using a predefined combination of the terms 'endometrial cancer' and 'pembrolizumab'. Overall, nine articles incorporating data from 712 patients were eligible. Pembrolizumab was demonstrated to be an effective and safe therapeutic option for the management of advanced/metastatic endometrial cancer. Results of ongoing trials evaluating either pembrolizumab alone or in combination with other antineoplastic regimens are expected to confirm its efficacy in this setting of patients. Pembrolizumab appears to be both durable and robust in endometrial cancer. However, there is an emerging need for novel predictive biomarkers to guide clinical practice. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Sources and study selection 3. Data on efficacy and safety 4. Discussion 5. Conclusion