%0 Journal Article %T The failure of protein cancer biomarkers to reach the clinic: why, and what can be done to address the problem? %A Diamandis Eleftherios P %J BMC Medicine %D 2012 %I BioMed Central %R 10.1186/1741-7015-10-87 %X There is a plethora of published cancer biomarkers but the reality is that very few, if any, new circulating cancer biomarkers have entered the clinic in the last 30 years. I here try to explain this apparent oxymoron by classifying circulating cancer biomarkers into three categories: fraudulent reports (rare); true discoveries of biomarkers, that then fail to meet the demands of the clinic; and false discoveries, which represent artifactual biomarkers. I further provide examples of combinations of some known cancer biomarkers that can perform well in niche clinical applications, despite individually being not useful. %K biomarker failures %K biomarker validation %K cancer biomarkers %K false discovery %K improved biomarkers %K proteomics %U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/87