Liquid biopsy has emerged as a transformative approach in oncology, providing minimally invasive access to tumor-derived biomarkers. In genitourinary cancers, it offers applications across diagnosis, prognosis, therapeutic guidance, and disease monitoring, complementing conventional tissue-based diagnostics and imaging.

This literature review synthesizes evidence from 125 studies evaluating circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells, extracellular vesicles, RNA species, and proteomic or metabolomic signatures in prostate, bladder, and renal cancers. The findings demonstrate that liquid biopsy technologies have shown substantial promise in early detection, risk stratification, and longitudinal surveillance, while also offering novel insights into therapeutic resistance and clonal evolution.

However, clinical translation remains constrained by pre-analytical variability, assay standardization challenges, limited sensitivity in low-tumor-burden settings, and the need for prospective validation in large, diverse populations. The review concludes that ongoing technological advances and integration with multi-omics approaches are likely to accelerate the adoption of liquid biopsy as a complement to tissue-based diagnostics and imaging in genitourinary oncology.

The work titled “Liquid biopsy in genitourinary oncology: Current clinical applications and future prospects across prostate, bladder, and renal cancers” was published in UroPrecision (published on December 21, 2025).
DOI :10.1002/uro2.70045