Metabolomics and Malignant Tumors

Malignant tumors are a group of diseases closely related to heredity, environment, and aging. Some cancers have been reported to be among the top ten causes of death. Due to the insidious nature of early symptoms, the survival rate of cancers is directly related to the stage of disease progression. This has led to increased attention to early diagnosis of cancer, necessitating the development of new technologies and detection methods for early screening. As reported, dysregulated cellular metabolism is a hallmark of cancer, and the abnormal metabolites may be identified as biomarkers. With the ability to sensitively capture subtle changes in body metabolism, metabolomics represents a promising strategy to explore biomarkers for prediction, early diagnosis, and monitoring of cancers. This chapter summarizes the results for metabolites from various tumor cells and biofluids to explore potential markers, elucidate the mechanisms of metabolic reprogramming, and provide potential targeted therapies that interfere with metabolism.