Lung cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. As early symptoms of lung cancer are minimal and non-specific, many patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Despite a concerted effort to diagnose lung cancer early, no biomarkers that can be used for lung cancer screening and prognosis prediction have been established so far. As global DNA demethylation and gene-specific promoter DNA methylation are present in lung cancer, DNA methylation biomarkers have become a major area of research as potential alternative diagnostic methods to detect lung cancer at an early stage. This review summarizes the emerging DNA methylation changes in lung cancer tumorigenesis, focusing on biomarkers for early detection and their potential clinical applications in lung cancer.

肺癌是最常见的癌症，也是全球癌症相关发病率和死亡率的主要原因。由于肺癌的早期症状微乎其微且无特异性，因此许多患者在确诊时已是晚期。尽管人们齐心协力地早期诊断肺癌，但迄今为止还没有建立可用于肺癌筛查和预后预测的生物标志物。由于肺癌中存在全局 DNA 去甲基化和基因特异性启动子 DNA 甲基化，DNA 甲基化生物标志物已成为一个主要研究领域，作为早期检测肺癌的潜在替代诊断方法。本综述总结了肺癌肿瘤发生中新出现的 DNA 甲基化变化，重点关注早期检测的生物标志物及其在肺癌中的潜在临床应用。