Biochemical markers for colorectal cancer. Diagnostic and therapeutic implications

The development of the understanding of oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and signal transduction has provided a significant advance in the concepts of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis in the colon and rectum. The tools provided by the molecular geneticist and the immunobiologist may yield powerful new techniques for screening individuals at risk, for identifying those patients with biologically more aggressive tumors, for developing novel therapies targeted directly at tumor cells, and for providing the means for more sensitive and specific detection of recurrence of disease.