Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related death in the western world. Its successful treatment requires early detection and removal of precursor lesions as well as individualized treatment of advanced disease. During recent years, molecular imaging techniques have shown promising results to improve current clinical practice. For instance, molecular endoscopy resulted in higher detection rates of precursors in comparison to conventional endoscopy in preclinical and clinical studies. Molecular confocal endomicroscopy allowed a further classification of suspect lesions as well as the prediction and monitoring of the therapeutic response. In this review, we summarize recent achievements for molecular imaging of CRC in preclinical studies, initial clinical trials and the remaining challenges for future translation into clinical practice.
Highlights
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in the Western world
It is well accepted that most CRCs slowly develop from precursor lesions such as adenomatous polyps, which develop within the adenoma-carcinoma sequence, or polyps of the serrated pathway [2]
There is an urgent demand for techniques improving the detection rate of CRC precursors within screening endoscopy
Summary
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in the Western world. Joshi et al developed a peptide that showed specific binding to human colorectal cancer cells with the V600E mutation of BRAF, which can frequently be detected in serrated polyps [28] If these markers can be used for molecular imaging of CRC, will need to be evaluated in further studies. All these studies did not evaluate how molecular endoscopy approaches compare to standard white light endoscopy for the detection of CRC precursors In this regard, Schwegmann et al used a NIR matrix metalloproteinase specific probe for the endoscopic detection of colon tumors induced through the administration of azoxymethane and dextrane sodium sulfate (AOM+DSS) in mice [39].
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