Utilising extracellular vesicles for early cancer diagnostics: benefits, challenges and recommendations for the future

• Published in: British journal of cancer Vol. 126; no. 3; pp. 323 - 330
• Main Authors: Pink, Ryan Charles, Beaman, Ellie-May, Samuel, Priya, Brooks, Susan Ann, Carter, David Raul Francisco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-02-2022; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/67/1857; 692/53/2421; Animals; Biomarkers, Tumor - analysis; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Biopsy; Cancer; Cancer Research; Cell-Free Nucleic Acids - analysis; Cell-Free Nucleic Acids - genetics; Cell-Free Nucleic Acids - metabolism; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Diagnostic tests; DNA; Drug Resistance; Early Detection of Cancer - methods; Epidemiology; Extracellular vesicles; Extracellular Vesicles - genetics; Extracellular Vesicles - metabolism; Humans; Liquid Biopsy - methods; Medical diagnosis; Molecular Medicine; Neoplasms - diagnosis; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - metabolism; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - pathology; Oncology; Review; Review Article; Tumors
• ISSN: 0007-0920; 1532-1827
• DOI: 10.1038/s41416-021-01668-4

To increase cancer patient survival and wellbeing, diagnostic assays need to be able to detect cases earlier, be applied more frequently, and preferably before symptoms develop. The expansion of blood biopsy technologies such as detection of circulating tumour cells and cell-free DNA has shown clinical promise for this. Extracellular vesicles released into the blood from tumour cells may offer a snapshot of the whole of the tumour. They represent a stable and multifaceted complex of a number of different types of molecules including DNA, RNA and protein. These represent biomarker targets that can be collected and analysed from blood samples, offering great potential for early diagnosis. In this review we discuss the benefits and challenges of the use of extracellular vesicles in this context and provide recommendations on where this developing field should focus their efforts to bring future success.