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Concept
Biomarker
Summary
In biomedical contexts, a biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition. Biomarkers are often measured and evaluated using blood, urine, or soft tissues to examine normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention. Biomarkers are used in many scientific fields.
Biomarker (medicine)Biomarkers used in the medical field, are a part of a relatively new clinical toolset categorized by their clinical applications. The four main classes are molecular, physiologic, histologic and radiographic biomarkers. All four types of biomarkers have a clinical role in narrowing or guiding treatment decisions and follow a sub-categorization of being either predictive, prognostic, or diagnostic.
Predictive molecular, cellular, or imaging biomarkers that pass validation can serve as a method of predicting clinical outcomes. Predictive biomarkers are used to help optimize ideal treatments, and often indicate the likelihood of benefiting from a specific therapy. For example, molecular biomarkers situated at the interface of pathology-specific molecular process architecture and drug mechanism of action promise capturing aspects allowing assessment of an individual treatment response. This offers a dual approach to both seeing trends in retrospective studies and using biomarkers to predict outcomes. For example, in metastatic colorectal cancer predictive biomarkers can serve as a way of evaluating and improving patient survival rates and in the individual case by case scenario, they can serve as a way of sparing patients from needless toxicity that arises from cancer treatment plans.
Common examples of predictive biomarkers are genes such as ER, PR and HER2/neu in breast cancer, BCR-ABL fusion protein in chronic myeloid leukaemia, c-KIT mutations in GIST tumours and EGFR1 mutations in NSCLC.
Diagnostic biomarkers that meet a burden of proof can serve a role in narrowing down diagnosis. This can lead to diagnosis that are significantly more specific to individual patients.
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