Evidence map›Paper›PMID 22876833›Full record

ArticleBMC medicine2012

The failure of protein cancer biomarkers to reach the clinic: why, and what can be done to address the problem?

Eleftherios P Diamandis

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in BMC medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
77citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
10.5field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

77 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 188 citations in OpenAlex.

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17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

Eleftherios P DiamandisDepartment of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada. ediamandis@mtsinai.on.ca
Mount Sinai Hospital · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

There is a plethora of published cancer biomarkers but the reality is that very few, if any, new circulating cancer biomarkers have entered the clinic in the last 30 years. I here try to explain this apparent oxymoron by classifying circulating cancer biomarkers into three categories: fraudulent reports (rare); true discoveries of biomarkers, that then fail to meet the demands of the clinic; and false discoveries, which represent artifactual biomarkers. I further provide examples of combinations of some known cancer biomarkers that can perform well in niche clinical applications, despite individually being not useful.

Indexed as

Biomarkers, TumorBiomedical ResearchBiotechnologyDiagnostic Techniques and ProceduresHumansNeoplasm ProteinsNeoplasmsReproducibility of ResultsTranslational Research, BiomedicalBiomarkers, TumorNeoplasm Proteins

Identifiers

PMID22876833
PMCPMC3425158
OpenAlexW2162217976

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.