Proteomic and Glycomic Markers to Differentiate Lung Adenocarcinoma from COPD

Lung adenocarcinoma is one of the leading causes of mortality among cancer patients worldwide and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is also high in death statistics. In addition, patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have a high risk of developing primary lung cancer. Prevention, risk estimation and a non-invasive diagnostics are essential to decrease COPD and lung cancer mortality. Therefore, better and more accurate molecular diagnostic markers (biomarkers) are needed for the early differential diagnosis of these lung diseases to help clinicians make better therapeutic decisions. This review focuses on recently discovered adenocarcinoma and COPD biomarkers at the proteome and glycome level. In the first part, the protein markers are summarized, while the second part is focused on glycan markers. Their use to differentiate between chronic inflammation (COPD) and malignant (adenocarcinoma) diseases is discussed in detail.