Updates on Clinical Use of Liquid Biopsy in Colorectal Cancer Screening, Diagnosis, Follow-Up, and Treatment Guidance

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, being the third most diagnosed in the world and the second deadliest. Solid biopsy provides an essential guide for the clinical management of patients with colorectal cancer; however, this method presents several limitations, in particular invasiveness, and cannot be used repeatedly. Recently, clinical research directed toward the use of liquid biopsy, as an alternative tool to solid biopsy, showed significant promise in several CRC clinical applications, as (1) detect CRC patients at early stage, (2) make treatment decision, (3) monitor treatment response, (4) predict relapses and metastases, (5) unravel tumor heterogeneity, and (6) detect minimal residual disease. The purpose of this short review is to describe the concept, the characteristics, the genetic components, and the technologies used in liquid biopsy in the context of the management of colorectal cancer, and finally we reviewed gene alterations, recently described in the literature, as promising potential biomarkers that may be specifically used in liquid biopsy tests.