An accurate, inexpensive, and noninvasive method for the early diagnosis of cancer has been something of a holy grail among cancer researchers, but until recently a method meeting all three criteria has been elusive. Nucleic acids were first discovered in circulation in 1948, but it was not until the 1960s and 70s that patients with autoimmune disease and cancer were discovered to have higher levels of circulating DNA than were detected in in healthy persons.

The focus in this volume is on three major applications of the circulating nucleic acids detection method: cancer, fetal...