Title: Advances in cancer biomarkers : from biochemistry to clinic for a critical revision /
Authors: Scatena, Roberto,
Year: 2015
Subjects: Neoplastic Processes; Early Detection of Cancer; Neoplasms diagnosis; Biomarkers, Tumor analysis; Biochemical markers.; Cancer Diagnosis; Biochemical markers; Cancer Diagnosis
Abstract: "At present there are a growing number of biomolecules under investigation to understand their potential role as cancer biomarker for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic purposes. Intriguingly, the state of art on cancer biomarkers research shows interesting and promising results together to clamorous failures. Also from a clinical point of view, there are contradictory results on routine clinical use of the present cancer biomarkers. Some patients may be simply monitored in their course by a periodic blood sample, but sometimes this monitoring shows dramatic limits. A lot of patients show serious and extensive relapses without significant change in serum concentrations of biomarkers tested. Often the physician who should utilize these biomarker does not entirely know their limits and the total potential applications as well and sometimes this knowledge is influenced by economical and marketing strategies. This limited and "polluted" knowledge may have dramatic consequences for patient. The aim of this book is to diffuse all aspects of cancer biomarkers, from their biochemical peculiarities to all clinical implications by passing through their physiology and pathophysiology. This critical approach towards old and new cancer biomarkers should foster a deepened and useful understanding of the diagnostic and prognostic index of these fundamental parameters of laboratory medicine and in the same time facilitating the research of new and more sensitive-specific signals of the cancer cell proliferation"--Back cover.
Contents: Cancer biomarkers discovery and validation: state of the art, problems and future perspectives -- Use of biomarkers in screening for cancer -- The role of metabolomics in the study of cancer biomarkers and in the development of diagnostic tools -- The role of epigenomics in the study of cancer biomarkers and in the development of diagnostic tools -- Efficient, adaptive clinical validation of predictive biomarkers in cancer therapeutic development -- Prostate specific antigen as a tumor marker in prostate cancer: biochemical and clinical aspects -- The actual role of LDH as tumor marker, biochemical and clinical aspects.