Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 14, 2016; 22(46): 10077-10083
Published online Dec 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i46.10077
From blood to breath: New horizons for esophageal cancer biomarkers
Roger Yazbeck, Simone E Jaenisch, David I Watson
Roger Yazbeck, Simone E Jaenisch, David I Watson, Department of Surgery, Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to this work.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. David I Watson, Professor, Department of Surgery, Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, Flinders University, Room 3D211, Bedford Park, South Australia 5042, Australia. david.watson@flinders.edu.au
Telephone: +61-8-82046086
Received: August 29, 2016
Peer-review started: August 31, 2016
First decision: September 28, 2016
Revised: October 5, 2016
Accepted: October 30, 2016
Article in press: October 31, 2016
Published online: December 14, 2016
Processing time: 105 Days and 14.4 Hours
Abstract

Esophageal cancer is a lethal cancer encompassing adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma sub-types. The global incidence of esophageal cancer is increasing world-wide, associated with the increased prevalence of associated risk factors. The asymptomatic nature of disease often leads to late diagnosis and five-year survival rates of less than 15%. Current diagnostic tools are restricted to invasive and costly endoscopy and biopsy for histopathology. Minimally and non-invasive biomarkers of esophageal cancer are needed to facilitate earlier detection and better clinical management of patients. This paper summarises recent insights into the development and clinical validation of esophageal cancer biomarkers, focussing on circulating markers in the blood, and the emerging area of breath and odorant biomarkers.

Keywords: Breath analysis; Cancer; MicroRNA; Non-invasive; Esophageal cancer; Biomarker

Core tip: The current “gold standard” test for detection of esophageal cancer is endoscopic imaging and confirmation by biopsy. There are several barriers to endoscopy as a clinical tool to monitor patients at high risk of esophageal cancer, including high capital and personnel costs and the invasive nature of the procedure. This paper highlight new insights into the development and clinical validation of circulating and breath biomarkers of esophageal cancer.