Researchers at University of Limerick and University Hospital Limerick have identified several new genetic biomarkers which better predict outcomes for patients with bowel/colorectal cancer. The research team identified genes that are predictors of cancer recurrence and can also help to identify a patients’ suitability to specific types of chemotherapy.
Professor J. Calvin Coffey Graduate Entry Medical School, UL and Colorectal Surgeon, University Hospital Limerick explains: “One of the key early events in the spread of cancer is its spread to involve the lymph glands that drain the colon. The identification of tumours that will spread to the glands is a key challenge for clinicians as these are the patients most likely to benefit from chemotherapy. The ability to avoid harmful chemotherapeutic side-effects is a clinical need that has yet to be met by the diagnostic tools available to clinicians. In Ireland colorectal cancer is the 3rd most common cancer with 2435 new cases diagnosed each year. This diagnostic instrument that we have developed, and this research in general, will impact on patients globally as we can now pin-point precisely patients who will develop spread to glands, and thus benefit from chemotherapy.”
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