"Onic" tumor markers for breast cancer- a review

Breast cancer is a global health issue, and as the tumor burden increases, we need to come up with newer, better technologies which are convenient, cheap, rapid, sensitive with a high specificity. Technological advancements in the field of cancer biomarker has led to the development of techniques such as mass spectrometric analysis and microarray analysis in which genes, proteins and hundreds and thousands of metabolites can be identified with the emergence of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. This research is focused on finding biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, staging, treatment response and targets for chemotherapy, generating a panel of markers which provide better clinical information compared to a single marker in the panel. This review briefly summarizes application of genomics and proteomics followed by key concepts and applications of metabolomics in breast cancer, with the conclusion that an integration of the three "OMIC" technologies may hold the key to future biomarker discovery.