Ma Yinfa, Gamagedara Sanjeewa
Department of Chemistry, Missouri University of Science & Technology, 400 West 11th Street, Rolla, MO 65409, USA.
Department of Chemistry, University of Central Oklahoma, 100 North University Drive, Edmond, OK 73034, USA.
Biomark Med. 2015;9(9):845-50. doi: 10.2217/bmm.15.60. Epub 2015 Sep 2.
Cancer biomarkers are biological, chemical or biophysical entities that are present in tumor tissues or body fluids which give valuable information about current and future behavior of cancer. This review discusses the applicability of biomarkers in different stages of cancer from cancer risk assessment to recurrence. In medical practice, biomarkers can be helpful in finding out one's potential cancer risk, confirming whether or not one is already affected with a particular type of cancer, to which drug will the cancer respond best and in what doses should it be administered, the effectiveness of the treatment and whether the cancer will recur. Although biomarker discovery and validation is a very challenging process, when considering its applications and advantages, it is well worth the effort.
癌症生物标志物是存在于肿瘤组织或体液中的生物、化学或生物物理实体，它们能提供有关癌症当前和未来行为的有价值信息。本综述讨论了生物标志物在癌症从风险评估到复发的不同阶段的适用性。在医学实践中，生物标志物有助于查明一个人的潜在癌症风险，确认某人是否已患有特定类型的癌症，该癌症对哪种药物反应最佳以及应以何种剂量给药，治疗效果如何以及癌症是否会复发。尽管生物标志物的发现和验证是一个非常具有挑战性的过程，但考虑到其应用和优势，付出这些努力是非常值得的。
