Current Thoracic Surgery
2018 , Vol 3 , Issue 2
Current advances in early detection, residual disease monitoring and treatment response in lung cancer: Liquid biopsy
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Ataturk Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
DOI :
10.26663/cts.2018.00019
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Lung cancer exhibits the highest mortality rate of all malignant tumors, and only a minority of non-small
cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients are diagnosed with localized, early stage tumors. Unfortunately,
NSCLC is usually detected at advanced and inoperable stages. Tumor biomarkers can detect early stage
lung cancer independently or in combination with low-dose computed tomography-based screening
techniques. A liquid biopsy is a noninvasive modality for the pathological and molecular characterization
of cancer, and it can be isolated from bodily fluids. There are a variety of biological elements that can
be isolated from the peripheral blood, such as exosomes, circulating cell-free (tumor) DNA, circulating
tumor cells, and microRNA. A liquid biopsy can be used to detect somatic mutations before treatment
and dynamically during treatment, and to monitor the treatment response. It can also be used for
minimal residual disease quantification, and to determine the emergence of therapy resistance. Despite
the numerous research studies showing successful results, clinically available lung cancer biomarkers
do not have sufficiently high specificity and sensitivity for widespread use. Therefore, universal
experimental and therapeutic research regarding advanced molecular diagnostics has become necessary.
Keywords :
biomarker, liquid biopsy, lung cancer