Future Directions in Diagnosis, Prognosis and Disease Monitoring of Adrenocortical Carcinoma: Novel Non-Invasive Biomarkers

Abstract

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine malignancy with frequent metastatic spread and poor prognosis. The disease can occur at any age with unexpected biological behavior. Recent genome-wide studies of ACC have contributed to our understanding of the disease, but diagnosis of ACC remains a challenge, even for multidisciplinary expert teams. Patients with ACC are frequently diagnosed in advanced stages and have limited therapeutic options. Therefore, for earlier diagnosis and better clinical management of adrenocortical carcinoma, specific, sensitive, and minimal invasive markers are urgently needed. Over several decades, great efforts have been made in discovering novel and reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers including microRNAs, steroid profilings, circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNAs and radiomics. In this review, we will summarize these novel noninvasive biomarkers and analyze their values for diagnosis, predicting prognosis, and disease monitoring. Current problems and possible future application of these non-invasive biomarkers will also be discussed.