New developments of gastric cancer biomarker research

Abstract

Gastric cancer is a deadly disease with high incidence and mortality rate in China. Early detection and treatment of gastric cancer showed significantly better 5-year survival rate. Conventional screening methods of gastric cancer include barium meal or endoscopic screening. There is a great need to find new biomarkers of gastric cancer for simpler, faster, and non-invasive screening of gastric cancer. A large array of molecules such as protein markers, metabolite markers, RNA markers, breath organic molecules have been identified as potential markers of gastric screening. Among them, pepsinogens and gastrin-17 have been applied in large scale of population screening. New species of metabolite markers, microRNA markers and breath molecules may further enhance the simplicity, sensitivity and specificity of gastric cancer screening.