Clinical trial · Observational
ctDNA in Patients With Thyroid Nodules
Determination of the Utility of Plasma Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) Measurements for Detection of Thyroid Cancer in Patients Undergoing Diagnostic Fine Needle Aspirations of the Thyroid
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Why stopped (as posted): Preliminary results indicated that this test had a number of false-negative results.
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
When the DNA inside of human cells undergoes certain alterations (mutations), the cells may develop into a cancer. The cancer cells may shed this DNA into the blood stream. This circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) can be detected by very sensitive, specialized laboratory tests. Measurement of ctDNA has been shown to be useful for following patients with known cancer. The purpose of this study is to examine blood specimens for the presence of ctDNA in individuals without known cancer who are scheduled to undergo a fine needle aspiration biopsy of the thyroid gland because of one or more thyroid nodules in order to see if the ctDNA test can detect a cancer at a very early stage. The results of this study should help define the role of ctDNA in the detection of early stage thyroid cancer and to define how sensitive it is (i.e. how well it picks up cancer when it is present) and how specific it is (i.e. how often is ctDNA found in patients with benign thyroid nodules).
Conditions
Conditions (4)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thyroid Adenoma | Thyroid Gland Follicular Adenoma | ALIAS | 0.90 |
| Thyroid Cancer | Malignant Thyroid Gland Neoplasm | CURATED_EXACT | 0.92 |
| Thyroiditis | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Thyroid Nodules | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
Interventions
Interventions (0)
Data not yet available
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (0)
[]Primary outcomes (2)
- measure
- Utility of plasma ctDNA measurements to detect thyroid cancer
- timeFrame
- 1 year
- description
- Correlation between plasma ctDNA results with pathology from the diagnostic fine needle aspiration biopsy of the thyroid gland.
- measure
- Screening characteristics of ctDNA measurement in patients with and without thyroid cancer.
- timeFrame
- 1 year
- description
- Determination of true positive, false positive and predictive values for using ctDNA measurements to detect thyroid cancer.
Secondary outcomes (1)
- measure
- Determination of incident rate of new thyroid or other cancers in patients who underwent initial measurement of ctDNA.
- timeFrame
- 5 years
- description
- Subjects will be contacted yearly to obtain follow-up information regarding the development of thyroid or other cancer in order to see if the initial ctDNA measurement detected the cancer before it became clinically apparent.
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 18 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * 18 years of age or older; * presence of one or more thyroid nodules who are going to have a fine needle aspiration biopsy performed as part of their normal care. Exclusion Criteria: * Prior history of cancer excluding basal cell carcinoma of the skin.
References
Publications (1)
- BACKGROUNDPupilli C, Pinzani P, Salvianti F, Fibbi B, Rossi M, Petrone L, Perigli G, De Feo ML, Vezzosi V, Pazzagli M, Orlando C, Forti G. Circulating BRAFV600E in the diagnosis and follow-up of differentiated papillary thyroid carcinoma. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Aug;98(8):3359-65. doi: 10.1210/jc.2013-1072. Epub 2013 Jun 20. PMID 23788690