During the last years, most prominent techniques for the analysis of biomarkers in cancer patients include antibody-based methods, such as ELISA that have established the use of CEA 13, death decoy receptor 3 (DcR3) and Spondin 2 14 and growth/differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) 15 as reliable tumour markers. The gene discussed is GDF15; the disease is neoplasm.