. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Feb 1.

Published in final edited form as: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2012 Dec 14;22(2):189–200. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-1263

Table 3.

Sample types appropriate for selected methods and technologies that can be used in cancer risk assessment, detection, prognosis, and survival

Sample	Method/Technology	Typical Potential Applications in Epidemiologic Studies
Blood	Methylation analysis (29, 75, 153–155), miRNA analysis (156–159), mtDNA analysis (160), metabolite profiling (161, 162), telomerase assay (134, 163, 164),	Cancer detection, screening, survival, prognosis, risk assessment
Buccal cells	Methylation analysis (165, 166), mtDNA analysis (167), mtDNA copy number analysis (8)	Cancer detection
Circulating tumor cells	Telomerase (168)	Cancer detection and prognosis
Circulating plasma DNA	Methylation analysis (31)	Cancer prognosis
Exfoliated cells from cervix	Methylation analysis (169, 170), mtDNA analysis (171)	Cancer detection
Exfoliated cells from urine	Methylation analysis (172, 173), mtDNA analysis (172, 173)	Cancer detection
Nipple aspirate	Methylation analysis (174, 175), mtDNA analysis (176–178), metabolite profiling (179, 180)	Cancer detection and prognosis
Serum	miRNA profiling (32)	Cancer prognosis
Tissue samples	All methods [epigenomics (25, 26, 30, 33, 181–184), telomerase (185), mtDNA (19, 20, 186)]	Cancer detection and prognosis
Urine	Metabolomic profiling (187, 188)	Cancer detection, identification of lifestyle factors contributing to disease, factors contributing to cancer prognosis