| In the United States, colon cancer is the third most common cancer and the second most common cause of death from cancer. Colon carcinogenesis is thought to emerge through a stepwise process that involves the transition of normal colon epithelium to neoplasm. The multistep progression of the disease requires years and possibly decades, thus early diagnosis and treatment could be a key to successful disease management. Unfortunately, 57% of colon cancer remains undetected until it has spread to the surrounding organs or lymph, a finding that correlates with a poor prognosis. Furthermore, despite numerous drug discovery efforts, the newest chemotherapy combination of Irinotecan/5-FU/Leucovorin extends survival by only two months over the standard treatment of surgery and chemotherapy with 5-FU and Leucovorin, a fact that illustrates our inability to effectively treat colon cancer once it has spread to the lymph or the surrounding organs. Improvements in patient survival could potentially come by diagnosing colon cancer at earlier stages.; Detecting colon cancer at earlier stages could have a dramatic effect on patient survival. Research over the last decade has supported the efficacy of screening for colon cancer in reducing mortality. Despite an increase in the number of people being screened, this has not resulted in a large decrease in colon cancer associated mortality. This can be explained by the observation that current screening methods are limited in sensitivity because detection is limited to lesions the examiner can visualize. To reduce mortality, screening methods that detect colon cancer at earlier stages, before they can be visually detected, are needed. Towards this aim, we have used genomics and proteomics based approaches to identify potential molecular markers and diagnostic reagents for colon cancer. |
