Abstract

　　Background—Recently, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technology has been applied to the exploration of biomarkers for early cancer diagnosis, but more effort is required to identify a single sensitive and specific biomarker. For early diagnosis, a proteomic profile is the gold standard, but inconvenient for clinical use since the profile peaks are quantitative. It would therefore be helpful to find a minimized profile, comprising fewer peaks than the original using an existing algorithm and compare it with other traditional statistical methods.