Circulating RNA detection, circulating tumor cells count, and molecular tumor profiling in a cohort of untreated metastatic colorectal cancer: A prospective multicenter ancillary study to the randomized VISNU trials

Abstract

Analysis of tumor -derived material in the blood has shown to reflect the genetic profile of both primary and metastatic lesions and provides real- time monitoring of tumor heterogeneity. We hypothesized that expression analysis of circulating mRNA and microRNA could be reliable biomarkers in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in the setting of large multicenter randomized trials.