Colorectal Cancer: Molecular Mechanism and Potential Biomarkers

Dear Colleagues,

Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world, with a yearly estimated number of roughly 2 million new cases and about 900 thousand deaths worldwide.

Despite all progress in basic science, clinical research and translation medicine within recent years, the molecular mechanisms of colorectal cancer have not been fully understood. They include genetics, metabolomic issues and several immunology aspects. The gastrointestinal microbiome plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer, and identifying a clearly reliable composition of "beneficial" or "hazardous" colonic microbiota is still missing.

There is an insistent need for further studies on factors influencing the micro-environment of the gastrointestinal tract (diet, xenobiotics, bile acids and other signalling molecules, luminal pH and others).

Fully reliable biomarkers are still missing. These markers should be determinative for the identification of cancer risk factors (both in high-risk and average risk populations), should cover the progression from premalignant lesions to cancer, dependableness of early diagnosis, staging and grading, prediction of response to treatment and side effects of oncology therapy (including immunopathology-associated complications, infections, bile acid malabsorption, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and others).

Artificial intelligence should be also implemented, employing advanced methods (e.g., data-mining, artificial neural network and others).

Dr. Nicholas J W Rattray
Dr. Jan Bures
Guest Editors

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• colorectal cancer
• molecular mechanism
• biomarkers
• signalling molecules
• gastrointestinal microbiome
• artificial intelligence