Abstract
Liquid biopsy, which generally refers to the analysis of biological components such as circulating nuclear acids and circulating tumor cells in body fluids, particularly in peripheral blood, has shown good capacity to overcome several limitations faced by conventional tissue biopsies. Emerging evidence in recent decades has confirmed the promising role of liquid biopsy in the clinical management of various cancers, including colorectal cancer, which is one of the most prevalent cancers and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Despite the challenges and poor clinical outcomes, patients with metastatic colorectal cancer can expect potential clinical benefits with liquid biopsy. Therefore, in this review, we focus on the clinical prospects of liquid biopsy in metastatic colorectal cancer, specifically with regard to the recently discovered various biomarkers identified on liquid biopsy. These biomarkers have been shown to be potentially useful in multiple aspects of metastatic colorectal cancer, such as auxiliary diagnosis of metastasis, prognosis prediction, and monitoring of therapy response.
Highlights
One of the most prevalent cancers worldwide, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality (Bray et al, 2018)
The analytes of liquid biopsy mainly refer to circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells (CTC), and circulating non-coding RNAs, which include non-coding RNAs released by cancer cells into the circulation and those traveling inside exosomes (Poulet et al, 2019; Rapado-González et al, 2019)
As a non-invasive and developing tool, could solve many limitations faced with conventional biopsies (FernándezLázaro et al, 2020)
Summary
One of the most prevalent cancers worldwide, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality (Bray et al, 2018). One quarter of CRC patients have metastasis when they are diagnosed and a considerable number of non-metastatic patients postoperatively develop metastasis. Clinical Perspective of Liquid Biopsy differ noticeably based on findings on multidisciplinary evaluation of CRC patients. Biomarkers, including diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive factors obtained from cancer biopsies are critically important for guiding the therapeutic strategy for patients with metastatic CRC. The development of precision medicine could potentially eliminate the abovementioned limitations by liquid biopsy, which generally refers to the testing of biological components obtained from body fluids, especially whole blood. We focus on the current application and clinical perspectives of liquid biopsy in metastatic CRC, on advances in the discovery of potential roles of liquid biopsy in diagnosing metastasis, prognosis assessment, and therapy response monitoring
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