Biomarkers for Early Cancer Diagnosis: Prospects for Success through the Lens of Tumor Genetics

Abstract

Thousands of candidate cancer biomarkers have been proposed, but so far, few are used in cancer screening. Failure to implement these biomarkers is attributed to technical and design flaws in the discovery and validation phases, but a major obstacle stems from cancer biology itself. Oncogenomics has revealed broad genetic heterogeneity among tumors of the same histology and same tissue (or organ) from different patients, while tumors of different tissue origins also share common genetic mutations. Moreover, there is wide intratumor genetic heterogeneity among cells within any single neoplasm. These findings seriously limit the prospects of finding a single biomarker with high specificity for early cancer detection. Current research focuses on developing biomarker panels, with data assessment by machine‐learning algorithms. Whether such approaches will overcome the inherent limitations posed by tumor biology and lead to tests with true clinical value remains to be seen.

The LncRNA DUXAP10 Could Function as a Promising Oncogene in Human Cancer

“…It is now widely accepted that the early diagnosis (An et al, 2021;Kannan et al, 2021) of tumors is essential for achieving a better prognosis and a lower mortality rate. Accurate diagnostic biomarkers (Ott et al, 2009;Wardle et al, 2015;Dragani et al, 2020) for detecting early-stage tumors are of great clinical significance. An increasing number of oncology studies have reported that the overexpression of DUXAP10 in diverse tumor tissues (such as NSCLC (Wei et al, 2017), glioma (Wu et al, 2021), and ESCC (Wang et al, 2018)) could be used to distinguish normal from tumor tissues, making it highly promising for the early diagnosis of tumors.…”

Electrochemical Cellulase-Linked ELASA for Rapid Liquid Biopsy Testing of Serum HER-2/neu

“…4 Among those, blood-circulating cancer-specific proteins are considered as potent biomarkers of both the cancer type and state. 5 However, just a few of them are currently approved by the FDA for liquid biopsy screening of cancer: serum prostate specific antigen as a biomarker of prostate cancer 6 and serum alpha-fetoprotein as a biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). 7,8 Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2/neu) is another promising and intensively studied predictive oncogene biomarker of human breast cancer, 9 being itself the target of a specific therapy.…”

“…A non-invasive liquid-biopsy detection of tumor-specific molecular biomarkers, circulating in biological fluids, allows both timely diagnosis of early-stage tumors, prognosis of cancer state, and treatment monitoring . Among those, blood-circulating cancer-specific proteins are considered as potent biomarkers of both the cancer type and state . However, just a few of them are currently approved by the FDA for liquid biopsy screening of cancer: serum prostate specific antigen as a biomarker of prostate cancer and serum alpha-fetoprotein as a biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). , …”

Bioluminescent RAPPID Sensors for the Single-Step Detection of Soluble Axl and Multiplex Analysis of Cell Surface Cancer Biomarkers

“…Biomarker-specific point-of-care (POC) tests that enable noninvasive diagnostic testing and screening outside the hospital and traditional laboratories represent a promising approach for the diagnosis of early-stage cancer. 1,2 Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver malignancy and early detection and prognosis increase therapy effectiveness. 3−5 Therapeutic curative approaches, like surgery and chemotherapy, are typically only effective for early-stage HCC and limited for later stage of the disease.…”

“…Biomarker-specific point-of-care (POC) tests that enable noninvasive diagnostic testing and screening outside the hospital and traditional laboratories represent a promising approach for the diagnosis of early-stage cancer. , Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver malignancy and early detection and prognosis increase therapy effectiveness. − Therapeutic curative approaches, like surgery and chemotherapy, are typically only effective for early-stage HCC and limited for later stage of the disease . At present, imaging techniques such as transabdominal ultrasonography (US) are the most commonly used screening methods for high-risk patients. − US is cost-effective but suboptimal for the detection of early-stage HCC, due to a moderate sensitivity of around 60% .…”