Single extracellular vesicle analysis for early cancer detection

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are actively shed into the circulation from both cancer and host cells. EVs are emerging as one of the diagnostic frontrunners for early cancer detection, disease monitoring, and treatment evaluation. The advantages of EVs rely on the fact that vesicles are being shed by dividing tumor cells, with indications that human and viral oncogenes, cellular metabolic rate, and tumor characteristics such as pH and hypoxia contribute to the high shed rates in cancer. In this review, we provide an overview of EVs and the rationale for using them for early cancer detection. We examine emerging technologies for single EV analysis (sEVA) and why these technologies will be necessary for early cancer detection.