Jiang J, Adams HP, Lange M, et al. - Researchers assessed the ability of next-generation sequencing coupled with cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from serially obtained plasma samples to evaluate treatment response and/or disease progression as well as to determine the potential of ctDNA to serve as a prognostic factor in patients taking first-line therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study involved 71 NSCLC cases managed with chemotherapy. Experts found that 89.4% (42/47) of tissue and 91.5% (407/445) of plasma samples exhibited the presence of somatic variants. TP53 (42.6%), KRAS (25.5%), and KEAP1 (19.1%) were the most frequently mutated genes in tissue. Findings showed that early prediction of disease progression can potentially be enabled by longitudinal monitoring of mutational alterations in plasma. A risk for earlier disease progression in advanced NSCLC was shown to be conferred by the presence of ctDNA mutations during first-line treatment.