Liquid Biopsy and Circulating Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Precancerous and Cancerous Oral Lesions

Abstract

Oral cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, accounting for 2% of all cases annually and 1.8% of all cancer deaths. To date, tissue biopsy and histopathological analyses are the gold standard methods for the diagnosis of oral cancers. However, oral cancer is generally diagnosed at advanced stages with a consequent poor 5-year survival (~50%) due to limited screening programs and inefficient physical examination strategies. To address these limitations, liquid biopsy is recently emerging as a novel minimally invasive tool for the early identification of tumors as well as for the evaluation of tumor heterogeneity and prognosis of patients. Several studies have demonstrated that liquid biopsy in oral cancer could be useful for the detection of circulating biomarkers including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), microRNAs (miRNAs), proteins, and exosomes, thus improving diagnostic strategies and paving the way to personalized medicine. However, the application of liquid biopsy in oral cancer is still limited and further studies are needed to better clarify its clinical impact. The present manuscript aims to provide an updated overview of the potential use of liquid biopsy as an additional tool for the management of oral lesions by describing the available methodologies and the most promising biomarkers.

Salivary miRNA Profiles in COVID-19 Patients with Different Disease Severities

“…Only a few studies so far have focused on identifying saliva biomarkers that can predict different clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients [ 18 , 19 ], and our data represent the first description of epigenetic and immunological determinants at the entry site of SARS-CoV-2 in saliva of COVID-19 patients prior to vaccination.…”

Nectin-4 as Blood-Based Biomarker Enables Detection of Early Ovarian Cancer Stages

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Role of Oral Microbiota Dysbiosis in the Development and Progression of Oral Lichen Planus

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