Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a deadly disease that affects millions worldwide, with metastasis being the leading cause of death in patients. However, a new study published in Oncoscience suggests that the Differential Presence of Exons (DPE) analysis, a novel and sustainable liquid biopsy technique, could improve the identification and stratification of CRC patients.
Researchers from the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Hospital Fundación Jiménez Díaz discuss DPE analysis as a promising and emerging technique in liquid biopsy, providing valuable information on CRC progression and response to therapy. Unlike invasive diagnostic techniques, DPE analysis is non-invasive, making it a more patient-friendly option.
The study identified a common exonic signature of 510 exons whose differential presence in plasma allowed the researchers to discriminate and classify between different clinical pictures, including patients with metastatic CRC, patients with non-metastatic CRC, and healthy individuals. The analysis revealed significant differences in the levels of DNA exons circulating in the plasma of CRC patients compared to healthy individuals, as well as metastatic CRC patients compared to non-metastatic and metastatic compared to healthy individuals.
This analysis yielded highly significant values, suggesting that circulating DNA in the patient’s plasma may play a key role in malignant transformation, or genometastasis. DPE analysis has emerged as a promising tool in liquid biopsy and may reduce the costs and time required for staging CRC patients, which could have implications for diagnosis and treatment.
The study’s results may have important implications for the development of personalized and more effective therapies for CRC patients, as identifying specific biomarkers may allow the selection of personalized and more effective therapies. Further studies are needed to validate these findings and to validate the clinical utility of DPE analysis in the stratification of CRC patients.
Early detection of CRC and its stratification is crucial to improve disease prognosis and reduce mortality. According to previous studies, about 25% of CRC cases are clinically diagnosed with liver metastases in the early stages, and about 50% of CRC patients experience symptoms of liver metastases throughout the course of the disease.
The incidence and mortality of CRC are expected to increase significantly in the future, with more than 2.2 million new cases and 1.1 million deaths expected by 2030. The use of liquid biopsy and DPE analysis in clinical practice may improve the efficacy of CRC diagnosis and treatment, which may lead to longer survival and improved quality of life for patients.
DPE analysis may be a promising tool in the identification of metastatic CRC and in the classification of different clinical pictures. The study suggests that DPE analysis may have an important role in improving the diagnosis and management of CRC.
