Cancer metabolomics: A tool of clinical utility for early diagnosis of gynaecological cancers

Gynaecological cancers are the major cause of cancer-related deaths in Indian women. The poor prognosis and lack of symptoms in the early stages make early cancer diagnosis difficult. The absence of mandatory screening programmes and the lack of awareness pose to be a real challenge in a developing economy as India. Prompt intervention is required to enhance cancer patient survival statistics and to lessen the social and financial burden. Conventional screening and cytological techniques employed currently have helped to reduce the incidence of cancers considerably. However, these tests offer low sensitivity and specificity and are not widely used for risk assessment, leading to inadequate early-stage cancer diagnosis. The accomplishment of Human Genome Project (HGP) has opened doors to exciting ‘omics’ platforms. Promising research in genomics and proteomics has revolutionized cancer detection and screening methodologies by providing more insights in the gene expression, protein function and how specific mutation in specific genes corresponds to a particular phenotype. However, these are incompetent to translate the information into clinical applicability. Various factors such as low sensitivity, diurnal variation in protein, poor reproducibility and analytical variables are prime hurdles. Thus the focus has been shifted to metabolomics, which is a much younger platform compared to genomics and proteomics. Metabolomics focuses on endpoint metabolites, which are final products sustained in the response to genetic or environmental changes by a living system. As a result, the metabolome indicates the cell’s functional condition, which is directly linked to its phenotype. Metabolic profiling aims to study the changes occurred in metabolic pathways. This metabolite profile is capable of differentiating the healthy individuals from those having cancer. The pathways that a cell takes in turning malignant are exceedingly different, owing to the fact that transformation of healthy cells to abnormal cells is linked with significant metabolic abnormalities. This review is aimed to discuss metabolomics and its potential role in early diagnosis of gynaecological cancers, viz. breast, ovarian and cervical cancer.