Validating Prognostic Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer and Determining Their Clinical Utility

Worldwide, over a million people are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year. Only clinical stage is used as a crude guide to help determine how long a patient will survive and to help inform their treatment options. There is a clear need for more accurate measures of survival. 

Our group is investigating whether a patient’s genetic code in their blood and cancer can be used as such a measure. We have already shown that genetic changes within the cancers themselves can have a major effect on survival. Furthermore, we have recently shown that a genetic change in a patient’s blood DNA can also influence survival. We have now carried out a full screen of the entire genome and identified many further genetic biomarkers which we aim to confirm, prove their clinical use and understand their function. 

Genetic biomarkers promise to inform patient survival and treatment options for improved quantity and quality of life. They may also inform the development of better therapies.