Cancer represents one of the conditions with the most causes of death worldwide. Common methods for its diagnosis are based on tissue biopsies—the extraction of tissue from the primary tumor, which is used for its histological analysis. However, this technique represents a risk for the patient, along with being expensive and time-consuming and so it cannot be frequently used to follow the progress of the disease. Liquid biopsy is a new cancer diagnostic alternative, which allows the analysis of the molecular information of the solid tumors via a body fluid draw. This fluid-based diagnostic method displays relevant advantages, including its minimal invasiveness, lower risk, use as often as required, it can be analyzed with the use of microfluidic-based platforms with low consumption of reagent, and it does not require specialized personnel and expensive equipment for the diagnosis. In recent years, the integration of sensors in microfluidics lab-on-a-chip devices was performed for liquid biopsies applications, granting significant advantages in the separation and detection of circulating tumor nucleic acids (ctNAs), circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and exosomes. The improvements in isolation and detection technologies offer increasingly sensitive and selective equipment’s, and the integration in microfluidic devices provides a better characterization and analysis of these biomarkers. These fully integrated systems will facilitate the generation of fully automatized platforms at low-cost for compact cancer diagnosis systems at an early stage and for the prediction and prognosis of cancer treatment through the biomarkers for personalized tumor analysis.

Objective Psychopathology in bariatric surgery patients may contribute to adverse postoperative sequelae, including weight regain, substance use, and self‐harm. This cross‐sectional study aimed to advance the understanding of the risk and protective paths through which weight bias associates with depressive and anxiety symptoms in bariatric surgery candidates (BSC). Methods BSC recruited from a surgical clinic (N = 213, 82.2% women, 43  [SD 12] years, mean BMI: 49  [SD 9] kg/m2) completed measures of experienced weight bias (EWB), internalized weight bias (IWB), body and internalized shame, and self‐compassion; anxiety and depression screeners were accessed from medical charts. Multiple regression and PROCESS bootstrapping estimates tested our hypothesized mediation model as follows: EWB→IWB→body shame→shame→self‐compassion→symptoms. Results After accounting for EWB and IWB, internalized shame accounted for greater variance in both end points than body shame. EWB was associated with greater anxiety through risk paths implicating IWB, body shame, and/or internalized shame. Protective paths associated EWB with fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms among those with higher self‐compassion. Conclusions The findings suggest a potentially important role for weight bias and shame in psychological health among BSC and implicate self‐compassion, a trainable affect‐regulation strategy, as a protective factor that may confer some resiliency. Future research using longitudinal and causal designs is warranted.

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