1. Circulating Tumour DNAs and Non-Coding RNAs as Liquid Biopsies for the Management of Colorectal Cancer Patients
- Author
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Margherita Ratti, Andrea Lampis, Milko Mirchev, Jens C. Hahne, Nicola Valeri, Michele Ghidini, and Ali Fuat Okuducu
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Oncology ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Tumour heterogeneity ,Colorectal cancer ,lcsh:Medicine ,colorectal cancer ,Context (language use) ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Carcinoembryonic antigen ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,lcsh:RC799-869 ,Liquid biopsy ,liquid biopsy ,microRNA ,long non-coding RNA ,biology ,business.industry ,lcsh:R ,Cancer ,medicine.disease ,Long non-coding RNA ,Biomarker (cell) ,030104 developmental biology ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,biology.protein ,circularRNA ,lcsh:Diseases of the digestive system. Gastroenterology ,circulating cell-free tumour DNA ,business - Abstract
Circulating tumour DNAs and non-coding RNAs present in body fluids have been under investigation as tools for cancer diagnosis, disease monitoring, and prognosis for many years. These so-called liquid biopsies offer the opportunity to obtain information about the molecular make-up of a cancer in a minimal invasive way and offer the possibility to implement theranostics for precision oncology. Furthermore, liquid biopsies could overcome the limitations of tissue biopsies in capturing the complexity of tumour heterogeneity within the primary cancer and among different metastatic sites. Liquid biopsies may also be implemented to detect early tumour formation or to monitor cancer relapse of response to therapy with greater sensitivity compared with the currently available protein-based blood biomarkers. Most colorectal cancers are often diagnosed at late stages and have a high mortality rate. Hence, biomolecules as nucleic acids present in liquid biopsies might have prognostic potential and could serve as predictive biomarkers for chemotherapeutic regimens. This review will focus on the role of circulating tumour DNAs and non-coding RNAs as diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers in the context of colorectal cancer.
- Published
- 2020