In recent years, sizeable methodological progress and a wealth of knowledge have promoted the advancement of the research on early cancer detection biomarkers, enhancing our understanding of its relationship to human physiology and pathologies. This is reflected in a persistent growth in the number of related scientific publications (journal articles and patents) in the recent decades (Figure ). A number of compendiums such as GOBIOM , GLOBOCAN 2020 , OncoMX , MarkerDB , LiqBioer , BIONDA , BiomarkerBase , The Human Gene Mutation Database , Cancer Biomarkers database , CBD: a biomarker database for colorectal cancer , ONS Biomarker Database , and others have collected hundreds of proposed biomarker candidates. However, even though a large number of biomarker candidates have been proposed , very few have progressed to the stage of clinical validation along their clinical trial pathway. In Figure , the yearly growth rate of the number of publications in the CAS Content Collection related to biomarkers for early cancer detection and those related to anti-tumor agents are compared. While initially the intense search for anti-tumor drugs resulted in higher growth rate in the area, in the last decade the growth rate in publications related to biomarkers for early cancer detection began to significantly dominate. This is a result of the insight that successful cancer treatment is only achievable at an early, localized stages of the disease, which requires efficient diagnostic strategies. This perception drew special attention to the early cancer detection and gave rise to the strong biomarkers research growth rate. In this paper, we review the advances in the knowledge related to biomolecules and cellular structures used for cancer early detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring. We examine data from the CAS Content Collection 105 , the largest human-curated collection of published scientific information, and analyze the publication landscape of recent research in order to provide insights into the scientific advances in the area. We also explore the Excelra's Biomarker Insights datasets 106 containing manually compiled information around biomarkers for selected disease indications. We discuss the evolution of key concepts in the field as well as the major technologies, the development pipelines of cancer biomarkers with a particular focus on pancreatic and liver cancer biomarkers. Pancreatic and liver cancers are known as some of the cancer types remarkably difficult to detect early, with particularly high morbidity and mortality , so we put a special emphasis on examining the advancements on the early detection of these two types of malignancies. The objective of the paper is to provide a broad overview of the evolving landscape of current knowledge on cancer biomarkers, to outline challenges and evaluate growth opportunities, in order to further efforts to solve the problems that remain. The novelty and merit of the article stem from the extensive, wide-ranging coverage of the most up-to-date scientific information accumulated in the explored databases, the CAS Content Collection and the Excelra's Biomarker Insights datasets, allowing unique, unmatched breadth of landscape analysis and in-depth insights. We hope this report can serve as a useful resource for understanding the current state of knowledge in the field of cancer biomarker research and development.