Emerging field of metabolomics: Big promise for cancer biomarker identification and drug discovery

- Mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance and chemometrics have enabled cancer biomarker discovery.
- Metabolomics can non-invasively identify biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer.
- All major types of cancers and their biomarkers discovered by metabolomics have been discussed.
- This review sheds light on the pitfalls and potentials of metabolomics with respect to oncology.