Book Description
March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and at Frontiers in Oncology we want to highlight the recent discoveries in the field and raise awareness of the importance of early diagnosis, multidisciplinary management, and technological innovation support. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide and represents one of the most relevant challenges for present and future global health, with 50 % of patients affected by CRC developing metastasis. Despite the introduction of novel therapeutic approaches and anticancer drugs, colorectal metastatic cancer (mCRC) continue to have a poor prognosis. In the last years, the extensive investigation on biomarkers that could identify patients at high risk for metastasis and predict the response to therapies has deeply impacted the therapeutic approaches to patients with mCRC. The most established biomarkers for mCRC are microsatellite instability (MSI) or mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR), HER2 amplification, RAS/BRAF mutations, and sidedness. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been extensively used to treat patients with microsatellite unstable or mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) CRC, while patients harboring a BRAFV600E mutation benefit from combination therapy with chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs. The success of biomarker-driven patient selection to improve the therapeutic response and the overall survival of patients with mCRC highlights the imperative need for further research to identify novel biomarkers for better patient-tailored therapy.
