Background: Cancer is one of primary causes of morbidity and mortality all over the world and late diagnosis still plays a dominating role in limiting treatment outcomes. A key area in oncology research includes identification of reliable, early markers of detection. Objective: The aim of this review was to show an overview of emerging biomarkers derived from different classes of the genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics and liquid biopsy platforms and to discuss their biological basis and promises for new and early cancer diagnostics along with their analytical performance. Methods: The peer-reviewed literature related to a systematic narrative review of the literature from 2015-2024 was retrieved through the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases from original research papers, clinical trials, and meta-analyses. Results: Several classes of biomarkers have shown high sensitivity and specificity in early detection of cancer, such as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), cell-free RNA (cfRNA), exosomes and aberrant methylation signatures, tumor-educated platelets, and novel protein panels. Multi-analyte liquid biopsy approaches, especially multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests, have demonstrated sensitivity over 70% for various cancers, at early stages. Conclusions: There is still no single biomarker that is widely clinically adopted and integrative platforms using multiple markers hold the most promising paradigm for early detection. Prospective large-scale validation and development of a regulatory framework are critical prerequisites for clinical translation, along with continued standardization of pre-analytical protocols.
Supriya Kosena (Mon,) studied this question.