Tissue and serum sclerostin in bone-related lesions: a scoping review

Abstract

Bone remodeling is extremely necessary for the renewal and maintenance of a healthy skeleton and consists of a process of bone resorption and formation, carried out, respectively, by osteoclasts and osteoblasts. In the coordination of bone remodeling are the osteocytes, and, therefore, the focus on markers related to the regulation of osteocyte activities can be clinically useful as markers of diagnosis, prognosis or monitoring of bone diseases. Sclerostin has been explored as a new biomarker of bone remodeling produced by osteocytes. Understanding its expression and pathways will potentially help us predict risk groups for bone tumor and tumor-like lesions in early stages. Thus, the clinical utility of this marker as diagnostic, prognostic, or monitoring tools during treatment still needs to be studied. In view of this, a scoping review is necessary for this matter. Electronic search to identify potentially relevant articles will be conducted in the following databases: Cochrane Library, Embase, Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences (LILACS), MEDLINE PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. A search in grey literature will be conducted through Google Scholar and ProQuest thesis and dissertations databases. Additionally, the reference lists of included studies will be checked to identify potentially relevant articles. Experts in the area will be contacted to retrieve ongoing or not published studies. No time or language restriction will be applied to the search