Trends in electrochemical biosensors for the early diagnosis of breast cancer through the detection of relevant biomarkers

Breast cancer is the second most frequent cause of mortality for women and one of the most prevalent malignant tumors that jeopardize women's health and unfortunately its prevalence is rising globally. Breast cancer has been diagnosed and treated to date by employing frequently used techniques such as mammography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), molecular breast imaging (MBI), biopsy, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), fluorescence hybridization, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunohistochemistry, and flow cytometry. Nevertheless, some of these techniques are relatively complex, time-consuming, and not costeffective, and even the low sensitivity and specificity of some of these platforms have caused these approaches not to receive much attention from researchers and clinical experts. For early identification and monitoring of cancer recurrence, the detection of low quantities of cancer biomarkers with high sensitivity and reproducibility is essential. While the detection of breast cancer by traditional methods is expensive, invasive, time-consuming, and sometimes has incorrect results, the development of an affordable technique that can diagnose breast cancer qualitatively or quantitatively in its early stages is one of the basic needs in this field. Due to their selectivity and high sensitivity, easy and quick detection, and lack of need for costly and specialized instruments, electrochemical biosensors have drawn particular interest. Therefore, the electrochemical method is considered an alternative to detect breast cancer biomarkers. In this review, some designed or developed electrochemical sensors and the methods and strategies for making these sensors for early detection of breast cancer are reviewed. The limitations and challenges of these investigations and obstacles to the commercialization of these systems are examined.