Serum Biomarkers in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

The interest in identifying circulating soluble biomarkers for malignant pleural mesothelioma is quite high. The studies aim at identifying a tool that could enable early detection of the disease before symptoms develop. Blood-based fibulin-3 and osteopontin studies are currently ongoing. Serum concentrations of YKL-40 had a moderate ability to discriminate between mesothelioma and other clinically relevant controls. Despite a large number of biomarkers being reported for mesothelioma in the literature, mesothelin remains the single-best blood-based biomarker for the cancer and is considered to be the ‘gold standard’.

Keywords: Biomarkers, fibulin-3, mesothelin, oseopontin, YKL-40.