![Sample our Bioscience journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5925/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Bioscience.jpg"})
Abstract
Head and neck cancer (HNC) is the sixth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Due to the low early diagnosis rate of HNC, local recurrence and high distant metastasis rate are the main reasons for treatment failure. Therefore, it is important to establish a method of diagnosis and monitoring, which is convenient, safe, reproducible, sensitive and specific. Compared with tissue biopsy, liquid biopsy is an emerging biopsy technique, which has the advantages of re-sampling, noninvasive and cost-effectiveness, and has shown good diagnostic and prognostic value in studies for various types of malignant solid tumors. This review introduces liquid biopsy, its research progress and prospects in HNC including early diagnosis, staging, grading, prognosis assessment and disease surveillance.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.