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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2016; 22(3): 1202-1212
Published online Jan 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i3.1202
New blood markers detection technology: A leap in the diagnosis of gastric cancer
Maneesh K Beeharry, Wen-Tao Liu, Min Yan, Zheng-Gang Zhu
Maneesh K Beeharry, Wen-Tao Liu, Min Yan, Zheng-Gang Zhu, Key Laboratory of Shanghai Gastric Neoplasms, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Author contributions: Beeharry MK performed the literature research, data analysis and wrote the manuscript; Liu WT contributed to the literature research and provided a critical revision of the manuscript; Yan M and Zhu ZG supervised the study and provided a critical revision of the manuscript prior to submission.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30872477 and No. 30901729.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors of the manuscript hereby declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Wen-Tao Liu, MD, PhD, Key Laboratory of Shanghai Gastric Neoplasms, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 197 Ruijin Road II, Shanghai 200025, China. wt_mygod@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-64370045 Fax: +86-21-64314781
Received: April 5, 2015
Peer-review started: April 7, 2015
First decision: September 9, 2015
Revised: September 28, 2015
Accepted: November 24, 2015
Article in press: November 24, 2015
Published online: January 21, 2016
Processing time: 284 Days and 20.2 Hours
Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is still one of the malignant tumors with high morbidity and mortality in the world, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 30%. GC is often either asymptomatic or causes only nonspecific symptoms in its early stages, whereas when the symptoms manifest, the cancer has usually reached an advanced stage, which is one of the main causes of its relatively poor prognosis. Hence, the main focus of GC research has been on discovering new tools and technology to predict, screen and diagnose GC at an early stage which would prompt early treatment. With the tremendous advances in the OMICS technology, serum proteomics has been in the limelight of cancer research over the last few decades and has steered the development of several methods helping to understand the mechanisms underlying gastric carcinogenesis, resulting in the identification of a large number of molecular targets such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), cell free DNA (cfDNA) and cell tumor DNA (ctDNA) and their sub-molecular components such as miRNA, that show great promise as GC biomarkers. In this review, we are underlying the recent breakthroughs about new blood markers technology for GC while scrutinizing the potential clinical use of CTCs, cfDNA, ctDNA and the role of the methylation of their sub-molecular components in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and management of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Circulating tumor cells; Circulating tumor DNA; Proteomics; Biomarkers; Methylation

Core tip: Gastric cancer (GC)’s poor prognosis has partly been a result of its late diagnosis due to its asymptomatic and nonspecific symptoms in its early stages. Tremendous advances in the OMICS technology have allowed the development of several methods helping to understand the mechanisms underlying gastric carcinogenesis, resulting in the identification of a large number of molecular targets such as circulating tumor cells, cell free DNA, cell tumor DNA and their sub-molecular components such as miRNA that show great promise as GC biomarkers. In this review, we are underlying the recent breakthroughs about new blood markers technology for GC while scrutinizing their potential clinical use in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and management of GC.