Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2025; 17(8): 107412
Published online Aug 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i8.107412
Role of circulating tumor DNA methylation in gastric cancer initiation and progression: A comprehensive review
Hai-Yu Huang, Jiang Lan, Wei Zhuang
Hai-Yu Huang, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Fengdu General Hospital, Chongqing 408200, China
Jiang Lan, Department of General Surgery, The Affiliated Dazu's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 402360, China
Wei Zhuang, Department of Intensive Care Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan 250000, Shandong Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Jiang Lan and Wei Zhuang.
Author contributions: Huang HY contributed to the conceptualization, data curation, and drafting of the manuscript; Lan J was responsible for the methodology design, literature review, and revision of the manuscript; Zhuang W supervised the study, provided critical revisions to the manuscript, and managed the project; Lan J and Zhuang W contributed equally to this work as co-corresponding authors; all the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to this manuscript.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wei Zhuang, MD, Department of Intensive Care Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 1 Jingbaji Road, Shizhong District, Jinan 250000, Shandong Province, China. 18364155005@163.com
Received: March 26, 2025
Revised: May 5, 2025
Accepted: June 19, 2025
Published online: August 15, 2025
Processing time: 141 Days and 15 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising noninvasive biomarker for early cancer detection and monitoring. Aberrant DNA methylation is one of the earliest and most frequent epigenetic alterations in gastric cancer. This review summarizes recent advances in understanding the role of ctDNA methylation in gastric cancer initiation and progression, and its potential clinical applications. We highlight the advantages of ctDNA methylation analysis in disease diagnosis, prognosis prediction, and therapeutic monitoring. A better understanding of ctDNA methylation dynamics may provide new insights into personalized medicine and improve outcomes in patients with gastric cancer.