Figure 1.

Comparisons between liquid biopsy and traditional screening approaches

Plasma-based biomarkers generally exhibit aberration early during tumorigenesis and provide abundant signals for analysis, e.g., circulating tumor cells (CTCs), exosomes, cfDNA, mRNA, miRNAs, and proteins. Several molecular alterations also carry tissue-specific patterns, which may help to locate the tissue origin of cancers and facilitate the follow-up diagnostic workup. Plasma-based techniques for early detection may provide solutions for the cancers with or without any recommended screening tools for now (marked by purple).