scholarly journals Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Where Are We Now?

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2274
Author(s):  
Filippo Pelizzaro ◽  
Romilda Cardin ◽  
Barbara Penzo ◽  
Elisa Pinto ◽  
Alessandro Vitale ◽  
...  

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related death worldwide. Diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers are urgently needed in order to improve patient survival. Indeed, the most widely used biomarkers, such as alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), have limited accuracy as both diagnostic and prognostic tests. Liver biopsy provides an insight on the biology of the tumor, but it is an invasive procedure, not routinely used, and not representative of the whole neoplasia due to the demonstrated intra-tumoral heterogeneity. In recent years, liquid biopsy, defined as the molecular analysis of cancer by-products, released by the tumor in the bloodstream, emerged as an appealing source of new biomarkers. Several studies focused on evaluating extracellular vesicles, circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA and non-coding RNA as novel reliable biomarkers. In this review, we aimed to provide a comprehensive overview on the most relevant available evidence on novel circulating biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognostic stratification, and therapeutic monitoring. Liquid biopsy seems to be a very promising instrument and, in the near future, some of these new non-invasive tools will probably change the clinical management of HCC patients.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Despina P. Kalogianni

AbstractLiquid biopsy is considered as the most attractive alternative to traditional tissue biopsies. The major advantages of this approach lie in the non-invasive procedure, the rapidness of sample collection and the potential for early cancer diagnosis and real-time monitoring of the disease and the treatment response. Nanotechnology has dynamically emerged in a wide range of applications in the field of liquid biopsy. The benefits of using nanomaterials for biosensing include high sensitivity and detectability, simplicity in many cases, rapid analysis, the low cost of the analysis and the potential for portability and personalized medicine. The present paper reports on the nanomaterial-based methods and biosensors that have been developed for liquid biopsy applications. Most of the nanomaterials used exhibit great analytical performance; moreover, extremely low limits of detection have been achieved for all studied targets. This review will provide scientists with a comprehensive overview of all the nanomaterials and techniques that have been developed for liquid biopsy applications. A comparison of the developed methods in terms of detectability, dynamic range, time-length of the analysis and multiplicity, is also provided.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3044
Author(s):  
Serena Pillozzi ◽  
Andrea Bernini ◽  
Ilaria Palchetti ◽  
Olivia Crociani ◽  
Lorenzo Antonuzzo ◽  
...  

Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) are a heterogeneous group of rare tumors. Although constituting only 1% of all human malignancies, STSs represent the second most common type of solid tumors in children and adolescents and comprise an important group of secondary malignancies. Over 100 histologic subtypes have been characterized to date (occurring predominantly in the trunk, extremity, and retroperitoneum), and many more are being discovered due to molecular profiling. STS mortality remains high, despite adjuvant chemotherapy. New prognostic stratification markers are needed to help identify patients at risk of recurrence and possibly apply more intensive or novel treatments. Recent scientific advancements have enabled a more precise molecular characterization of sarcoma subtypes and revealed novel therapeutic targets and prognostic/predictive biomarkers. This review aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the most relevant cellular, molecular and metabolic biomarkers for STS, and highlight advances in STS-related biomarker research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 2655
Author(s):  
Randa G. Hanna-Sawires ◽  
Jorinde H. Schiphuis ◽  
Manfred Wuhrer ◽  
Hans F. A. Vasen ◽  
Monique E. van Leerdam ◽  
...  

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is known as a highly aggressive malignant disease. Prognosis for patients is notoriously poor, despite improvements in surgical techniques and new (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy regimens. Early detection of PDAC may increase the overall survival. It is furthermore foreseen that precision medicine will provide improved prognostic stratification and prediction of therapeutic response. In this review, omics-based discovery efforts are presented that aim for novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of PDAC. For this purpose, we systematically evaluated the literature published between 1999 and 2020 with a focus on protein- and protein-glycosylation biomarkers in pancreatic cancer patients. Besides genomic and transcriptomic approaches, mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics and glycomics of blood- and tissue-derived samples from PDAC patients have yielded new candidates with biomarker potential. However, for reasons discussed in this review, the validation and clinical translation of these candidate markers has not been successful. Consequently, there has been a change of mindset from initial efforts to identify new unimarkers into the current hypothesis that a combination of biomarkers better suits a diagnostic or prognostic panel. With continuing development of current research methods and available techniques combined with careful study designs, new biomarkers could contribute to improved detection, prognosis, and prediction of pancreatic cancer.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Sonia Hermoso-Durán ◽  
Guillermo García-Rayado ◽  
Laura Ceballos-Laita ◽  
Carlos Sostres ◽  
Sonia Vega ◽  
...  

Background: Current efforts in the identification of new biomarkers are directed towards an accurate differentiation between benign and premalignant cysts. Thermal Liquid Biopsy (TLB) has been previously applied to inflammatory and tumor diseases and could offer an interesting point of view in this type of pathology. Methods: In this work, twenty patients (12 males and 8 females, average ages 62) diagnosed with a pancreatic cyst benign (10) and premalignant (10) cyst lesions were recruited, and biological samples were obtained during the endoscopic ultrasonography procedure. Results: Proteomic content of cyst liquid samples was studied and several common proteins in the different groups were identified. TLB cyst liquid profiles reflected protein content. Also, TLB serum score was able to discriminate between healthy and cysts patients (71% sensitivity and 98% specificity) and between benign and premalignant cysts (75% sensitivity and 67% specificity). Conclusions: TLB analysis of plasmatic serum sample, a quick, simple and non-invasive technique that can be easily implemented, reports valuable information on the observed pancreatic lesion. These preliminary results set the basis for a larger study to refine TLB serum score and move closer to the clinical application of TLB providing useful information to the gastroenterologist during patient diagnosis.


Author(s):  
Nurbubu T. Moldogazieva ◽  
Sergey P. Zavadskiy ◽  
Susanna S. Sologova ◽  
Innokenty M. Mokhosoev ◽  
Alexander A. Terentiev

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