Enhancing Lung Cancer Classification through Integration of Liquid Biopsy Multi-Omics Data with Machine Learning Techniques

Mass spectrometry imaging in pulmonary disorders

Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) represents a novel and advancing technology that offers unparalleled in situ characterization of tissues. It provides comprehensive insights into the chemical structures, relative abundances, and spatial distributions of a vast array of both identified and unidentified endogenous and exogenous compounds, a capability not paralleled by existing analytical methodologies. Recent scholarly endeavors have increasingly explored the utility of MSI in the adjunct diagnosis and biomarker research of pulmonary disorders, including but not limited to lung cancer. Concurrently, MSI has proven instrumental in elucidating the spatiotemporal dynamics of various pharmacological agents. This review concisely delineates the fundamental principles underpinning MSI, its applications in pulmonary disease diagnosis, biomarker discovery, and drug distribution investigations. Additionally, it presents a forward-looking perspective on the prospective trajectories of MSI technological advancements.

Liquid biopsy in non-small cell lung cancer: a meta-analysis of state-of-the-art and future perspectives

Introduction: To date, tissue biopsy represents the gold standard for characterizing non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), however, the complex architecture of the disease has introduced the need for new investigative approaches, such as liquid biopsy. Indeed, DNA analyzed in liquid biopsy is much more representative of tumour heterogeneity. Materials and methods: We performed a meta-analysis of 17 selected papers, to attest to the diagnostic performance of liquid biopsy in identifying EGFR mutations in NSCLC. Results: In the overall studies, we found a sensitivity of 0.59, specificity of 0.96 and diagnostic odds ratio of 24,69. Since we noticed a high heterogeneity among different papers, we also performed the meta-analysis in separate subsets of papers, divided by 1) stage of disease, 2) experimental design and 3) method of mutation detection. Liquid biopsy has the highest sensitivity/specificity in high-stage tumours, and prospective studies are more reliable than retrospective ones in terms of sensitivity and specificity, both NGS and PCR-based techniques can be used to detect tumour DNA in liquid biopsy. Discussion: Overall, liquid biopsy has the potential to help the management of NSCLC, but at present the non-homogeneous literature data, lack of optimal detection methods, together with relatively high costs make its applicability in routine diagnostics still challenging.