Metabolic profiling of biofluids: potential in lung cancer screening and diagnosis

The knowledge that the organism's metabolome is a potentially informative mirror of the impact of disease and its dynamics has led to promising developments in cancer research, strongly geared toward the discovery of new biomarkers of disease onset and progression. The present text reviews the advances made in the last 10 years in lung cancer research making use of the metabolomics strategies, particularly concerning metabolite profiling of human biofluids (blood serum and plasma, urine and others), expected to reflect the deviant metabolic behavior of lung tumors. The main goal of this article is to provide the reader with an up-to-date summary of the main metabolic variations taking place in biofluids, in relation to lung cancer, as well as of the analytical strategies employed to unveil them. Furthermore, particular needs and challenges are identified and possible developments envisaged.