Liquid biopsy to identify Barrett’s oesophagus, dysplasia and oesophageal adenocarcinoma: the EMERALD multicentre study
Background There is no clinically relevant serological marker for the early detection of oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and its precursor lesion, Barrett’s oesophagus (BE). Objective To develop and test a blood-based assay for EAC and BE. Design Oesophageal MicroRNAs of BaRRett, Adenocarcinoma and Dysplasia ( EMERALD ) was a large, international, multicentre biomarker cohort study involving 792 patient samples from 4 countries ([NCT06381583][1]) to develop and validate a circulating miRNA signature for the early detection of EAC and high-risk BE. Tissue-based miRNA sequencing and microarray datasets (n=134) were used to identify candidate miRNAs of diagnostic potential, followed by validation using 42 pairs of matched cancer and normal tissues. The usefulness of the candidate miRNAs was initially assessed using 108 sera (44 EAC, 34 EAC precursors and 30 non-disease controls). We finally trained a machine learning model (XGBoost+AdaBoost) on RT-qPCR results from circulating miRNAs fro
