Circulating Cell-Free Nucleic Acids as Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Prognosis of Pancreatic Cancer

• Published in: Biomedicines Vol. 11; no. 4; p. 1069
• Main Authors: Marin, Anelis Maria, Sanchuki, Heloisa Bruna Soligo, Namur, Guilherme Naccache, Uno, Miyuki, Zanette, Dalila Luciola, Aoki, Mateus Nóbrega
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01.04.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Alcohol; Antigens; Biological markers; Biomarkers; Biopsy; Body mass index; Breast cancer; Cancer therapies; cell-free DNA; Chemotherapy; circulating cell-free nucleic acids; Diabetes; Diagnosis; diagnostic; Disease; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medical prognosis; Metastasis; miRNA; mRNA; Obesity; Pancreatic cancer; Prognosis; prognostic; Review; Risk factors; RNA; Smoking; Tomography; Tumor cells; Tumors; Weight control; United States; prognostic; cell-free DNA; pancreatic cancer; diagnostic; circulating cell-free nucleic acids
• ISSN: 2227-9059; 2227-9059
• DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines11041069

A lack of reliable early diagnostic tools represents a major challenge in the management of pancreatic cancer (PCa), as the disease is often only identified after it reaches an advanced stage. This highlights the urgent need to identify biomarkers that can be used for the early detection, staging, treatment monitoring, and prognosis of PCa. A novel approach called liquid biopsy has emerged in recent years, which is a less- or non-invasive procedure since it focuses on plasmatic biomarkers such as DNA and RNA. In the blood of patients with cancer, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and cell-free nucleic acids (cfNAs) have been identified such as DNA, mRNA, and non-coding RNA (miRNA and lncRNA). The presence of these molecules encouraged researchers to investigate their potential as biomarkers. In this article, we focused on circulating cfNAs as plasmatic biomarkers of PCa and analyzed their advantages compared to traditional biopsy methods.