Aptasensors for lung cancer detection

Lung cancer is a highly prevalent and lethal malignant tumor worldwide, accounting for approximately 25% of all cancer deaths. Early symptoms are often subtle, leading to late-stage diagnosis in the majority of patients and a missed window for optimal treatment. Therefore, more sensitive diagnostic approaches are urgently required to improve survival rates and reduce the disease burden. Compared with traditional imaging and tissue biopsy, novel biosensors have become important tools for lung cancer diagnosis due to their high sensitivity, non-invasiveness and rapid detection abilities. Aptamers, a class of single-stranded DNA/RNA molecules capable of specific target recognition, are ideal for the development of efficient lung cancer biosensors owing to their low synthesis cost, high stability, minimal immunogenicity, and ease of modification. This review focuses on the application of aptamers in lung cancer detection, summarizes current developments in aptamer-based sensors (aptasensors), and critically compares the analytical performance, clinical limitations and translational obstacles of five mainstream aptasensor platforms, then discusses their challenges and future perspectives, aiming to promote more accurate and efficient early-diagnostic techniques for lung cancer.