Personalis presents ultrasensitive cancer relapse detection data at ASCO
Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) unveiled comprehensive clinical data at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, establishing the diagnostic capabilities of its ultrasensitive minimal residual disease (MRD) detection platform.
Presentations focused on the company's proprietary NeXT Personal assay, demonstrating its utility in identifying early patient relapse across six distinct solid tumor types, headlined by landmark lung and colorectal cancer studies.
The data release comes alongside recent Medicare approvals, strengthening the firm's commercial runway in the precision oncology market.
Data from the prospective VICTORI study, led by the University of British Columbia, evaluated more than 100 resectable Stage I-IV colorectal cancer (CRC) patients using the NeXT Personal platform.
An interim analysis revealed that the assay achieved 100 percent sensitivity for cancer relapse during active surveillance, identifying recurrences ahead of traditional clinical imaging.
Notably, this included distant metastases in areas that are historically difficult to detect, such as the lungs.
Additionally, the platform demonstrated an 82 percent landmark sensitivity just four weeks after surgery, providing an early molecular indicator to help clinicians formulate adjuvant treatment pathways.
In a separate oral podium presentation, investigators from University College London utilized the TRACERx cohort to evaluate 431 Stage IA-IIIB non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.
The analysis emphasized the clinical importance of tracking circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) at ultra-low thresholds, with NeXT Personal achieving a median limit of detection of 1.66 parts per million (ppm).
The study found that approximately 21 percent of pre-operative adenocarcinoma and 18 percent of post-operative landmark detections occurred below the 10 ppm threshold—a level frequently missed by less sensitive diagnostic tools.
Patients with post-operative detections below 10 ppm within 10 to 120 days following surgery faced a three-fold increased risk of recurrence compared to those with undetectable ctDNA.
Beyond thoracic and gastrointestinal malignancies, Personalis highlighted the clinical performance of its assay in multiple other solid tumors through collaborative studies with leading global research institutions.
A project with the MD Anderson Cancer Center analyzed 72 high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer patients following frontline therapy.
The detection of ctDNA correlated with a 3.5-fold risk increase for disease progression, demonstrating comparable sensitivity and specificity to invasive second-look laparoscopy (SLL), indicating the platform's potential as a non-invasive alternative for patient monitoring.
