Diagnostic proteomics: Serum proteomic patterns for the detection of early stage cancers

Abstract

The ability to interrogate thousands of proteins found in complex biological samples using proteomic technologies has brought the hope of discovering novel disease-specific biomarkers. While most proteomic technologies used to discover diagnostic biomarkers are quite sophisticated, "proteomic pattern analysis" has emerged as a simple, yet potentially revolutionary, method for the early diagnosis of diseases. Utilizing this technology, hundreds of clinical samples can be analyzed per day and several preliminary studies suggest proteomic pattern analysis has the potential to be a novel, highly sensitive diagnostic tool for the early detection of cancer.