Epigenetics and biomarkers in lung cancer: Emerging blood-based molecular biomarkers for detection and monitoring

Abstract

Early detection and precise diagnosis of lung cancer are critical to select proper therapeutic treatments as early as possible. Toward this direction, the discovery and exploitation of novel innovative, non-invasive, and reliable tumor biomarkers are of vital importance. In this review, we present emerging blood based molecular biomarkers that have been evaluated for the detection and monitoring of lung cancer. We specially focus on biomarkers based on a non-invasive liquid biopsy approach, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating miRNAs, gene promoter methylation, and DNA mutations in cell free circulating DNA.