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1. 4. 2021.
Tracking Cancer Evolution through the Disease Course
During cancer evolution constituent tumour cells compete under dynamic selection pressures. Phenotypic variation can be observed as intratumour heterogeneity, which is propagated by genome instability leading to mutations, somatic copy number alterations and epigenomic changes. TRACERx was set up in 2014 to observe the relationship between intratumour heterogeneity and patient outcome. By integrating multi-region sequencing of primary tumours with longitudinal sampling of a prospectively recruited patient cohort, cancer evolution can be tracked from early to late stage disease and through therapy. Here we review some of the key features of the studies and look to the future of the field.