Liquid Biopsy in Colorectal Cancer

Dear Colleagues,

During the last decade, liquid biopsies have received great attention as a promising tool usable in cancer. The use of liquid biopsies could have important implications for early cancer diagnosis, prognosis, the prediction of responses to treatment, the monitoring of tumor evolution, and the identification of the mechanisms of resistance to therapies. Many technologies have been developed to isolate, detect and characterize circulating biomarkers.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA), and extracellular vesicles are all liquid-biopsy specimens that could provide much important information with regard to tumor and microenvironment characteristics. The use of liquid biopsies could permit bypassing several issues concerning the use of tumor tissue, such as tumor heterogeneity, and make it possible to monitor tumor evolution and identify mechanisms of resistance to treatment, without the need to perform invasive tumor re-biopsies. The use of liquid biopsies in colorectal cancer, although not yet introduced in clinical practice, could have very important implications.

The goal of this Special Issue is to summarize the principal evidence relative to liquid-biopsy applications in the management of colorectal cancer patients, highlighting liquid biopsies’ potentiality and limits for potential use in clinical practice.

Dr. Paola Ulivi
Guest Editor

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• Early diagnosis
• Prognosis
• Monitoring of treatment
• Molecular characterization
• Heterogeneity
• Resistance mechanisms