which is more important in cancer? the clinical or the prognostic markers to be choose as a target for study purposes?
It depends on your objective! Do you want to characterize a cancer type or understand its pathogenesis then clinical marker. Sometimes clinical markers can serve in diagnostics and prognostics. Example HER2 amplification. Prognostic markers are important to study as they may predict survival, response to treatment as well as treatment options.
That would depend what you want from your research , diagnostic markers would require only confirmation of diagnosis and comparison with a gold standard. However, prosgnostic markers would additionally require follow up , which is difficult to achieve .
Both are important and complementary. However in certain cases biochemical markers are essential. That would be the case of PSA in prostate cancer.
A good oncologist consider biochemical and clinical markers to establish a prognosis.
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