Open AccessTumor circulome in the liquid biopsies for digestive tract cancer diagnosis and prognosis
Author(s) -
Long Chen,
Yu Chen,
Yang Feng,
Yan Zhu,
Liquan Wang,
Shen Hu,
Pu Cheng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
world journal of clinical cases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.368
H-Index - 10
ISSN - 2307-8960
DOI - 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i11.2066
Subject(s) - medicine , liquid biopsy , digestive tract , biopsy , cancer , pathology , gold standard (test) , cancer cell , oncology
Digestive tract cancer is one of the main diseases that endanger human health. At present, the early diagnosis of digestive tract tumors mainly depends on serology, imaging, endoscopy, and so on. Although tissue specimens are the gold standard for cancer diagnosis, with the rapid development of precision medicine in cancer, the demand for dynamic monitoring of tumor molecular characteristics has increased. Liquid biopsy involves the collection of body fluids via non-invasive approaches, and analyzes biological markers such as circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNA, circulating cell-free DNA, microRNAs, and exosomes. In recent years, liquid biopsy has become more and more important in the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer in clinical practice due to its convenience, non-invasiveness, high specificity and it overcomes temporal-spatial heterogeneity. Therefore, this review summarizes the current evidence on liquid biopsies in digestive tract cancers in relation to diagnosis and prognosis.