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Clinical biomarkers

With the increasing sophistication of diagnostic processes and expanding knowledge about association between biomolecules, genomics and acute disease, interest in biomarkers is at an all time high. Although there are many research studies into validating and understanding the prognostic and diagnostic value of biomarkers, this remains a relatively young field in terms of actual translation to the clinic. This thematic series covers recent advances in the clinical applications of biomarkers across a range of medically-relevant topics, demonstrating that biomarkers for acute illness are moving into the mainstream clinic but also highlighting the work that still lies ahead to make them more clinically useful.

  1. There is an increased incidence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in individuals after myocardial infarction (MI), but the pathophysiological processes mediating this association are unclear. Our previous stu...

    Authors: Yiming Wang, Xingde Liu, Dongfeng Zhang, Jianhui Chen, Shuzheng Liu and Michael Berk
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:32
  2. Ineffective risk stratification can delay diagnosis of serious disease in patients with hematuria. We applied a systems biology approach to analyze clinical, demographic and biomarker measurements (n = 29) col...

    Authors: Frank Emmert-Streib, Funso Abogunrin, Ricardo de Matos Simoes, Brian Duggan, Mark W Ruddock, Cherith N Reid, Owen Roddy, Lisa White, Hugh F O'Kane, Declan O'Rourke, Neil H Anderson, Thiagarajan Nambirajan and Kate E Williamson
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:12
  3. More than a million diagnostic cardiac catheterizations are performed annually in the US for evaluation of coronary artery anatomy and the presence of atherosclerosis. Nearly half of these patients have no sig...

    Authors: William A LaFramboise, Rajiv Dhir, Lori A Kelly, Patricia Petrosko, John M Krill-Burger, Christin M Sciulli, Maureen A Lyons-Weiler, Uma R Chandran, Aleksey Lomakin, Robert V Masterson, Oscar C Marroquin, Suresh R Mulukutla and Dennis M McNamara
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:157
  4. Since the first description of the case of Auguste Deter, presented in Tübingen in 1906 by Alois Alzheimer, there has been an exponential increase in our knowledge of the neuropathological, cellular, and molec...

    Authors: Maciej J Lazarczyk, Patrick R Hof, Constantin Bouras and Panteleimon Giannakopoulos
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:127
  5. The complexity of tissue and the alterations that distinguish normal from cancer remain a challenge for translating results from tumor biological studies into clinical medicine. This has generated an unmet nee...

    Authors: Caroline Kampf, Julia Bergman, Per Oksvold, Anna Asplund, Sanjay Navani, Mikaela Wiking, Emma Lundberg, Mathias Uhlén and Fredrik Ponten
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:103
  6. Interleukin-22 (IL-22), recently identified as a crucial parameter of pathology in experimental liver damage, may determine survival in clinical end-stage liver disease. Systematic analysis of serum IL-22 in r...

    Authors: Bernd Kronenberger, Ina Rudloff, Malte Bachmann, Friederike Brunner, Lisa Kapper, Natalie Filmann, Oliver Waidmann, Eva Herrmann, Josef Pfeilschifter, Stefan Zeuzem, Albrecht Piiper and Heiko Mühl
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:102
  7. Recent insights provide support for the treatment of cancer during pregnancy, a coincidence that poses both mother and fetus at risk. Our aim was to critically review studies on the physiologic variations duri...

    Authors: Sileny N Han, Anouk Lotgerink, Mina Mhallem Gziri, Kristel Van Calsteren, Myriam Hanssens and Frédéric Amant
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:86
  8. Colorectal cancer (CRC), which frequently metastasizes to the liver, is one of the three leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Growing evidence suggests that a subset of cells exists among cancer ...

    Authors: Shan-shan Zhang, Zhi-peng Han, Ying-ying Jing, Shuang-fen Tao, Tie-jun Li, Hao Wang, Yang Wang, Rong Li, Yang Yang, Xue Zhao, Xiao-dong Xu, En-da Yu, Yao-cheng Rui, Hou-jia Liu, Li Zhang and Li-xin Wei
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:85
  9. Germinal center kinase-like kinase (GLK, also termed MAP4K3), a member of the MAP4K family, may regulate gene transcription, apoptosis and immune inflammation in response to extracellular signals. The enhanced...

    Authors: Der-Yuan Chen, Huai-Chia Chuang, Joung-Liang Lan, Yi-Ming Chen, Wei-Ting Hung, Kuo-Lung Lai and Tse-Hua Tan
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:84
  10. The Reporting Recommendations for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies (REMARK) checklist consists of 20 items to report for published tumor marker prognostic studies. It was developed to address widespread deficie...

    Authors: Douglas G Altman, Lisa M McShane, Willi Sauerbrei and Sheila E Taube
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:51
  11. There is an important need for the identification of novel serological biomarkers for the early detection of cancer. Current biomarkers suffer from a lack of tissue specificity, rendering them vulnerable to no...

    Authors: Ioannis Prassas, Caitlin C Chrystoja, Shalini Makawita and Eleftherios P Diamandis
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:39
  12. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is activated in response to stress. One of the activated hypothalamic hormones is arginine vasopressin, a hormone involved in hemodynamics and osmoregulation. Copeptin, ...

    Authors: Christian H Nickel, Roland Bingisser and Nils G Morgenthaler
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:7
  13. Febrile neutropenia is a frequently occurring and occasionally life-threatening complication of treatment for childhood cancer. Many biomarkers have been proposed as predictors of adverse events. We aimed to u...

    Authors: Robert S Phillips, Ros Wade, Thomas Lehrnbecher, Lesley A Stewart and Alex J Sutton
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:6
  14. Sepsis is the clinical syndrome derived from the host response to an infection and severe sepsis is the leading cause of death in critically ill patients. Several biomarkers have been tested for use in diagnos...

    Authors: Katia Donadello, Sabino Scolletta, Cecilia Covajes and Jean-Louis Vincent
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:2
  15. Bone repair is dependent on the presence of osteocompetent progenitors that are able to differentiate and generate new bone. Muscle is found in close association with orthopaedic injury, however its capacity t...

    Authors: Renjing Liu, Oliver Birke, Alyson Morse, Lauren Peacock, Kathy Mikulec, David G Little and Aaron Schindeler
    Citation: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 2011 12:288
  16. About half of Americans 50 to 75 years old do not follow recommended colorectal cancer (CRC) screening guidelines, leaving 40 million individuals unscreened. A simple blood test would increase screening compli...

    Authors: Jorja D Warren, Wei Xiong, Ashley M Bunker, Cecily P Vaughn, Larissa V Furtado, William L Roberts, John C Fang, Wade S Samowitz and Karen A Heichman
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2011 9:133
  17. The validation of biomarkers has become a key goal of translational biomedical research. The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of biomarkers in the management of acute lung injury (ALI) and relate...

    Authors: Alastair G Proudfoot, Matthew Hind and Mark JD Griffiths
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2011 9:132