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Precision Medicine for Digestive Diseases
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Precision Medicine for Digestive Diseases

A special issue of Journal of Personalized Medicine (ISSN 2075-4426). This special issue belongs to the section "Personalized Therapy and Drug Delivery".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 5464

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Adina Emilia Croitoru

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Oncology, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 022328 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: clinical oncology; digestive oncology; cancer diagnostics and treatments; cancer biomarkers; clonal hematopoiesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Irina M. Cazacu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Oncology, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 022328 Bucharest, Romania
2. Faculty of Medicine, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 050474 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: digestive oncology; cancer biomarkers; cancer screening; pancreatic cancer; clonal hematopoiesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Precision medicine in gastrointestinal cancers represents a significant shift towards more personalized healthcare, with the potential to improve outcomes, reduce unnecessary treatments, and enhance the quality of life for patients with these complex diseases.

Gastrointestinal cancers, encompassing a diverse group of malignancies including esophageal, gastric, colorectal, pancreatic, liver, and biliary tract, remain a significant challenge worldwide due to their high incidence, mortality rates, and complex biological behaviors. Currently, several biomarkers predictive of prognosis or drug response have been suggested for patients with digestive cancers and their detection in tissue or liquid biopsies has the potential to improve clinical practice. This Special Issue is designed to provide information on new biomarker research in the area of gastrointestinal tumors that could be useful for individualized care. Furthermore, this Special Issue aims to explore how precision medicine can revolutionize the management of these cancers, from early detection and diagnosis to treatment and beyond.

Contributions may include original research articles, review papers, and perspectives from leading experts in the field. We encourage submissions from a multidisciplinary team of authors, reflecting the collaborative nature of precision medicine.

Dr. Adina Emilia Croitoru
Dr. Irina M. Cazacu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Personalized Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • colorectal cancer
  • esophageal cancer
  • gastric cancer
  • pancreatic cancer
  • liver and biliary tract cancer
  • biomarkers
  • tissue biopsy
  • liquid biopsy
  • precision medicine

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 362 KiB  
Article
The Predictive Value of Red Cell Distribution Width in End-Stage Colorectal Cancers’ 6-Month Palliative Chemotherapy Response—A Single Center’s Experience
by Maciej Jankowski, Krystyna Bratos, Joanna Wawer and Tomasz Urbanowicz
J. Pers. Med. 2025, 15(8), 359; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm15080359 - 7 Aug 2025
Viewed by 252
Abstract
Backgrounds: The incidence of gastrointestinal cancers (GICs), though decreased in recent years, still accounts for 35% of all cancer-related mortality. The proper identification of risk factors, early diagnosis, and therapy optimization represent the three cornerstones of GIC treatment. In four-stage diseases, chemotherapy embodies [...] Read more.
Backgrounds: The incidence of gastrointestinal cancers (GICs), though decreased in recent years, still accounts for 35% of all cancer-related mortality. The proper identification of risk factors, early diagnosis, and therapy optimization represent the three cornerstones of GIC treatment. In four-stage diseases, chemotherapy embodies target therapy that may prolong patients’ expectancy when suitably applied. Patients and Methods: There were 133 (82 (62%) male and 51 (38%) female) consecutive patients with a median age of 70 (64–74) years who underwent palliative treatment due to four-stage colorectal cancer (CRC) between 2022 and 2024. The demographic, clinical, and laboratory data and applied chemotherapeutic protocols were evaluated regarding the response to applied therapy, resulting in complete or partial tumor regression. The advancement of the tumor was based on computed tomography (CT) performed before and 6 months after the chemotherapy. Results: The multivariable model revealed red cell distribution width (RDW) from peripheral blood analysis (OR: 0.81, 95% CI: 0.65–1.00, p = 0.049) as a possible predictor for systemic treatment response in colorectal cancer. The receiver operating characteristic curve revealed a predictive value of male sex and RDW prior to systemic therapy, with an area under the curve of 0.672, yielding a sensitivity of 70.0% and specificity of 58.1%. Conclusions: The results of our analysis point out the possible modulatory impact of RDW on six-month systemic therapy in colorectal terminal cancer management. Further studies are required to confirm the presented results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Precision Medicine for Digestive Diseases)
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Review

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12 pages, 539 KiB  
Review
Dynamics of RAS Mutations in Liquid Biopsies in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Patients—Case Series and Literature Review
by Ionut Popescu, Vlad M. Croitoru, Irina M. Croitoru-Cazacu, Ana-Maria Dudau, Vlad Herlea, Simona Olimpia Dima and Adina Emilia Croitoru
J. Pers. Med. 2024, 14(7), 750; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14070750 - 15 Jul 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2709
Abstract
Liquid biopsies can accurately identify molecular alterations in patients with colorectal cancer with high concordance with tissue analysis and shorter turnaround times. Circulating tumor (ct) DNA analysis can be used for diagnosing and monitoring tumor evolution in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who [...] Read more.
Liquid biopsies can accurately identify molecular alterations in patients with colorectal cancer with high concordance with tissue analysis and shorter turnaround times. Circulating tumor (ct) DNA analysis can be used for diagnosing and monitoring tumor evolution in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who are treated with EGFR inhibitors. In this article, we reported three clinical cases to illustrate the relevance of RAS mutations identified in ctDNA samples of patients with wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer who received an EGFR inhibitor plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment. The identification of RAS mutations in these patients is one of the most frequently identified mechanisms of acquired resistance. However, detecting a KRAS mutation via liquid biopsy can be caused by inter-tumor heterogeneity or it can be a false positive due to clonal hematopoiesis. More research is needed to determine whether ctDNA monitoring may help guide therapy options in metastatic colorectal cancer patients. We performed a literature review to assess the technologies that are used for analysis of RAS mutations on ctDNA, the degree of agreement between tissue and plasma and the importance of tissue/plasma discordant cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Precision Medicine for Digestive Diseases)
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Other

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16 pages, 1270 KiB  
Systematic Review
Clinical Outcome of Colorectal Cancer Patients with Concomitant Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
by Daniel Sur, Constantin Ionut Coroama, Alessandro Audisio, Roberta Fazio, Maria Coroama and Cristian Virgil Lungulescu
J. Pers. Med. 2024, 14(5), 520; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14050520 - 14 May 2024
Viewed by 1815
Abstract
Background: Arterial hypertension is regarded as a possible biomarker of treatment efficacy in colorectal cancer. Also, extended anti-angiogenic use in the metastatic treatment of the colorectal neoplasm may result in elevated blood pressure. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess [...] Read more.
Background: Arterial hypertension is regarded as a possible biomarker of treatment efficacy in colorectal cancer. Also, extended anti-angiogenic use in the metastatic treatment of the colorectal neoplasm may result in elevated blood pressure. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the clinical outcome of colorectal cancer patients with concomitant hypertension (HTN). Methods: We conducted a systematic search on Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed (Medline), the Cochrane Library, and CINAHL from inception until October 2023 for articles that addressed the relationship between HTN and progressive free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and overall response rate (ORR) for the first and second line of systemic therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Results: Eligibility criteria were met by 16 articles out of 802 screened studies. Pooled analysis showed that HTN was associated with significantly improved PFS (HR: 0.507, 95% CI: 0.460–0.558, p ≤ 0.001) and OS (HR: 0.677, 95% CI: 0.592–0.774, p ≤ 0.001) in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. In addition, the pooled RR of HTN for the ORR (RR: 1.28, 95% CI: 1.108–1.495, p = 0.001) suggests that HTN could be a predictive factor of ORR in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Conclusions: Elevated blood pressure is associated with better clinical outcomes in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Precision Medicine for Digestive Diseases)
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