Recent advances in integrated microfluidics for lung cancer detection and future directions

Lung cancer exhibits the highest incidence and mortality rates among all cancer types. Common imaging and respiratory endoscopy methods are not suitable for lung cancer screening due to their high invasiveness and false positive rates. Therefore, developing early screening methods is essential to improve the early diagnosis of lung cancer. Microfluidic technology has shown strong advantages in the detection of lung cancer in recent years, especially in liquid biopsy, with a detection platform featuring low sample demand, low cost, high sensitivity, and high throughput. In this paper, we review the current research status of microfluidic technology for the early detection of lung cancer markers, including circulating tumor cells (CTCs), exosomes, and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). The focus is on multifunctional integrated microfluidic detection platforms that combine separation, enrichment and detection into a unified system. Furthermore, the challenges in developing microfluidic technology and the future trends are discussed.