Biomarkers in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Abstract

Significant advances in chemotherapeutics over the past decade have seen a doubling in the median survival time of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. However, this comes at the cost of toxicity to the patient and financial burden to the community. Biomarkers to predict disease course and treatment response are therefore of major importance so as to allow for the judicious selection of treatment candidates and agents and doses. This review seeks to summarize the current markers available for the prediction of prognosis and treatment response in metastatic colorectal cancer.