Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 7, 2019; 25(17): 2029-2044
Published online May 7, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i17.2029
Recent advances in gastric cancer early diagnosis
Laura Necula, Lilia Matei, Denisa Dragu, Ana I Neagu, Cristina Mambet, Saviana Nedeianu, Coralia Bleotu, Carmen C Diaconu, Mihaela Chivu-Economescu
Laura Necula, Lilia Matei, Denisa Dragu, Ana I Neagu, Cristina Mambet, Saviana Nedeianu, Coralia Bleotu, Carmen C Diaconu, Mihaela Chivu-Economescu, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, Stefan S. Nicolau Institute of Virology, Bucharest 030304, Romania
Laura Necula, Faculty of Medicine, Titu Maiorescu University, Bucharest 040441, Romania
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS - UEFISCDI, No. PN-III-P4-ID-PCCF2016-0158 (contract PCCF 17/2018), within PNCDI III.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
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/
Corresponding author: Mihaela Chivu-Economescu, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Research Scientist, Senior Researcher, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, Stefan S. Nicolau Institute of Virology, 285 Mihai Bravu Ave, Bucharest 030304, Romania. mihaela.chivu@gmail.com
Telephone: +40-21-3242590 Fax: +40-21-3242590
Received: March 19, 2019
Peer-review started: March 19, 2019
First decision: March 27, 2019
Revised: April 3, 2019
Accepted: April 19, 2019
Article in press: April 20, 2019
Published online: May 7, 2019
Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) remains an important cause of cancer death worldwide with a high mortality rate due to the fact that the majority of GC cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage when the prognosis is poor and the treatment options are limited. Unfortunately, the existing circulating biomarkers for GC diagnosis and prognosis display low sensitivity and specificity and the GC diagnosis is based only on the invasive procedures such as upper digestive endoscopy. There is a huge need for less invasive or non-invasive tests but also highly specific biomarkers in case of GC. Body fluids such as peripheral blood, urine or saliva, stomach wash/gastric juice could be a source of specific biomarkers, providing important data for screening and diagnosis in GC. This review summarized the recently discovered circulating molecules such as microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, circular RNAs, which hold the promise to develop new strategies for early diagnosis of GC.

Keywords: Biomarkers, Gastric cancer, Early diagnosis, Genetic and epigenetic alterations, Circulating molecules

Core tip: Despite the fact that in the last decades, gastric cancer (GC) has shown a decreasing incidence, the five-year survival rate continues to remain poor mainly because most patients are asymptomatic until the disease progresses to advanced stages. Recent progress in molecular landscape of GC and improved detection methods may facilitate screening and diagnosis of GC in early stages. Numerous studies aim to identify specific non-invasive biomarkers from alternative sources such as peripheral blood, urine or saliva, stomach wash/gastric juice. This review summarized the recently discovered circulating molecules which hold the promise to develop new strategies for early diagnosis of GC.