Novel Therapeutics and Prognostications in Gastrointestinal Cancers

Dear Colleagues,

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide and leads to a number of cancer-related morbidity and mortality. GI cancer is heterogeneous, involving a wide range of organs including the esophagus, stomach, hepatobiliary system, pancreas, small and large intestines, rectum and anus. It is also quite diverse as regards its histological types, which consist mainly of adenocarcinoma, followed by neuroendocrine tumor, sarcoma, and hematopoietic neoplasms. The etiology is also quite diverse. For example, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Helicobacter pylori, inflammatory bowel disease, and hepatitis B or C virus infection are associated with the development of esophageal, gastric, intestinal and liver cancers, respectively. Of note, a certain number of GI cancers can be inherited. Noteworthy, GI cancer is often diagnosed in an advanced stage. For those, traditional chemotherapy may benefit patient outcome, but the survival remains poor. Recently, various targeted therapies have been developed based on increased understanding of the molecular features and immunogenicity of GI cancers, and remarkable survival benefits in certain subsets of patients have been archived. Accordingly, systemic identification and validation of novel therapeutics and prognostic models and biomarkers would most likely gain patients benefit.

With this concept, the aim of this Special Issue is to collect manuscripts associated with the following points to allow the delivery of precision oncology in GI cancers:

1. The prognostic patterns/models (either statistics or biomedical) for GI cancers.
2. The novel biomarkers carrying either therapeutic or prognostic values for GI cancers.
3. Novel agents or novel strategies for the treatment of GI cancers, either in vitro or in in vivo.

Prof. Dr. Chien-Feng Li
Guest Editor

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