Biomarkers: paving stones on the road towards the personalized precision medicine for oral squamous cell carcinoma

• Published in: BMC cancer 2018-09, Vol.18 (1), p.911-911, Article 911
• Main Authors: Zhong, Liang, Liu, Yutong, Wang, Kai, He, Zhijing, Gong, Zhaojian, Zhao, Zhili, Yang, Yaocheng, Gao, Xiaofei, Li, Fangjie, Wu, Hanjiang, Zhang, Sheng, Chen, Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Animals; Biological markers; Biomarker; Biomarkers; Biomarkers, Tumor; Cancer; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - diagnosis; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - etiology; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - metabolism; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - therapy; Care and treatment; Cell adhesion & migration; Cloning; Diabetes; Diabetic retinopathy; Diagnosis; Disease; Early Detection of Cancer; Epigenomics - methods; Gene expression; Genetic Heterogeneity; Genomics; Genomics - methods; High-Throughput Screening Assays; Humans; Medical diagnosis; Medical prognosis; Mouth cancer; Mouth Neoplasms - diagnosis; Mouth Neoplasms - etiology; Mouth Neoplasms - metabolism; Mouth Neoplasms - therapy; Oral cancer; Oral squamous cell carcinoma; Pathogenesis; Personalized precision medicine; Precision medicine; Precision Medicine - methods; Proteomics; Proteomics - methods; Quality of life; Review; Squamous cell carcinoma; Transcriptomics; Tumor Microenvironment; Tumorigenesis; Tumors
• ISSN: 1471-2407; 1471-2407
• DOI: 10.1186/s12885-018-4806-7

Traditional therapeutics have encountered a bottleneck caused by diagnosis delay and subjective and unreliable assessment. Biomarkers can overcome this bottleneck and guide us toward personalized precision medicine for oral squamous cell carcinoma. To achieve this, it is important to efficiently and accurately screen out specific biomarkers from among the huge number of molecules. Progress in omics-based high-throughput technology has laid a solid foundation for biomarker discovery. With credible and systemic biomarker models, more precise and personalized diagnosis and assessment would be achieved and patients would be more likely to be cured and have a higher quality of life. However, this is not straightforward owing to the complexity of molecules involved in tumorigenesis. In this context, there is a need to focus on tumor heterogeneity and homogeneity, which are discussed in detail. In this review, we aim to provide an understanding of biomarker discovery and application for precision medicine of oral squamous cell carcinoma, and have a strong belief that biomarker will pave the road toward future precision medicine.