Serum/plasma DNA methylation pattern and early detection of breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. With its fatality rate reduced significantly if diagnosed early, developing cost-effective, noninvasive methods of early detection is highly investigated. Currently, mammography with magnetic resonance imaging is considered the optimal method of early detection in women who are at a significantly raised risk of developing breast cancer. Due to environmental effects and life-style changes in recent years, elevation of the risk of cancer incidents in lower risk populations is observed and therefore, the development of a relatively easy-performed and low-cost method for early detection of cancer in general and breast cancer in particular is needed. Serum-based analysis techniques have been quite popular subject of research recently as they can be performed with low technical knowledge, become automated and are cheap. In the present article, we have reviewed the literature related to the use of DNA methylation-detection based techniques for diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer using serum or plasma circulating tumor DNA and their power as a future biomarker. A reference to all genes that is reported to be differentially methylated in breast cancer accompanies the article.