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. 2021 Jul 27;12:671057. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.671057

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Copyright © 2021 Barefoot, Loyfer, Kiliti, McDeed, Kaplan and Wellstein.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Complementary role of tissue and liquid biopsies in oncology. Localized solid tissue biopsies are invasive and provide a snapshot of limited representational heterogeneity based on the small piece of tissue that is excised. In comparison, liquid biopsies are minimally invasive and allow for serial sampling to provide systemic information about the primary tumor as well as distant metastatic sites indicated in different colors. Thus, liquid biopsies complement tissue biopsies and increase representation of heterogeneity supporting the tracking of clonal evolution over time.