Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jan 21:11:801269.
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.801269. eCollection 2021.

The Role of Circulating Biomarkers in Lung Cancer

Sayuri Herath  1 , Habib Sadeghi Rad  2 , Payar Radfar  3 , Rahul Ladwa  4 , Majid Warkiani  3 , Ken O'Byrne  2   4 , Arutha Kulasinghe  5
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Circulating Biomarkers in Lung Cancer

Sayuri Herath et al. Front Oncol. .

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide and early diagnosis is crucial for the management and treatment of this disease. Non-invasive means of determining tumour information is an appealing diagnostic approach for lung cancers as often accessing and removing tumour tissue can be a limiting factor. In recent years, liquid biopsies have been developed to explore potential circulating tumour biomarkers which are considered reliable surrogates for understanding tumour biology in a non-invasive manner. Most common components assessed in liquid biopsy include circulating tumour cells (CTCs), cell-free DNA (cfDNA), circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), microRNA and exosomes. This review explores the clinical use of circulating tumour biomarkers found in liquid biopsy for screening, early diagnosis and prognostication of lung cancer patients.

Keywords: Circulating tumour cells; cell-free DNA; circulating tumour DNA; liquid biopsy; lung cancer; microRNA and exosomes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
The identification of multi-marker analytes in liquid biopsy samples enables a personalised medicine approach to the management of lung cancer.
Figure 1
Figure 1
The process of cancer metastasis. Metastasis occurs via the vascular or lymph circulatory systems, where cancer cells from the primary tumour, intravasate into the blood/lymphatics systems and travel through the body, and extravasate at local/distant sites/organs. Adapted from “Overview of Metastatic Cascade”, by BioRender.com (2021). Retrieved from https://app.biorender.com/biorender-templates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Multi-marker analytes in a liquid biopsy sample: CTCs, cfDNA and exosomes can be analysed at different time points during clinical progression/treatment. Adapted from Ref (20) and created with BioRender.com.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Importance of liquid biopsy at different stages of cancer propagation, indicating the biomarker purpose, evolution of clones, and treatment effects. Adapted from Ref (160) and created with BioRender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Boloker G, Wang C, Zhang J. Updated Statistics of Lung and Bronchus Cancer in United States (2018). J Thorac Dis (2018) 10(3):1158. doi: 10.21037/jtd.2018.03.15 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Siegel RL, Miller KD, Jemal A. Cancer Statistics, 2019. CA: Cancer J Clin (2019) 69(1):7–34. doi: 10.3322/caac.21551 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Patz EF, Jr., Campa MJ, Gottlin EB, Kusmartseva I, Guan XR, Herndon JE. Panel of Serum Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer. J Clin Oncol (2007) 25(35):5578–83. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2007.13.5392 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Howlader N, Noone AM, Krapcho M, Miller D, Brest A, Yu M, et al. . SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2017. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute; (2020) https://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2017/
    1. Kapeleris J, Kulasinghe A, Warkiani ME, Vela I, Kenny L, O’Byrne K, et al. . The Prognostic Role of Circulating Tumor Cells (Ctcs) in Lung Cancer. Front Oncol (2018) 8:311. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2018.00311 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources