Chu LY, Peng YH, Weng XF, Xie JJ, Xu YW. Blood-based biomarkers for early detection of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. World J Gastroenterol 2020; 26(15): 1708-1725 [PMID: 32351288 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i15.1708]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yi-Wei Xu, PhD, Associate Senior Technician, Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, the Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, 7 Raoping Road, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China. yiwei512@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
Ling-Yu Chu, Jian-Jun Xie, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Yu-Hui Peng, Xue-Fen Weng, Yi-Wei Xu, Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, the Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Yu-Hui Peng, Xue-Fen Weng, Jian-Jun Xie, Yi-Wei Xu, Precision Medicine Research Center, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Chu LY collected the data and wrote the manuscript; Peng YH and Weng XF collected the data; Xie JJ and Xu YW supervised the work and revised the manuscript.
Supported byNational Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 31600632 and No. 81972801; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. 2018A030307079 and No. 2019A1515011873; Innovative and Strong School Project of Guangdong, No. 2018KTSCX068; Key Disciplinary Project of Clinical Medicine under the Guangdong High-level University Development Program.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Yi-Wei Xu, PhD, Associate Senior Technician, Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, the Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, 7 Raoping Road, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China. yiwei512@126.com
Received: December 25, 2019 Peer-review started: December 25, 2019 First decision: January 16, 2020 Revised: March 13, 2020 Accepted: March 19, 2020 Article in press: March 19, 2020 Published online: April 21, 2020
Abstract
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a common malignant tumor of the digestive system worldwide, especially in China. Due to the lack of effective early detection methods, ESCC patients often present at an advanced stage at the time of diagnosis, which seriously affects the prognosis of patients. At present, early detection of ESCC mainly depends on invasive and expensive endoscopy and histopathological biopsy. Therefore, there is an unmet need for a non-invasive method to detect ESCC in the early stages. With the emergence of a large class of non-invasive diagnostic tools, serum tumor markers have attracted much attention because of their potential for detection of early tumors. Therefore, the identification of serum tumor markers for early detection of ESCC is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to achieve early diagnosis and treatment of ESCC. This article reviews the recent advances in the discovery of blood-based ESCC biomarkers, and discusses the origins, clinical applications, and technical challenges of clinical validation of various types of biomarkers.
Core tip: At present, the early detection of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) mainly depends on endoscopy and histopathological biopsy. However, the high cost and invasiveness of endoscopy have limited its use as a tool for screening the general population. Blood tests provide a non-invasive method for early detection of ESCC. Therefore, this article reviews the recent advances in the discovery of blood-based biomarkers in the early detection of ESCC.
