Abstract
In spite of recent advances in colon cancer treatment, patients with advanced disease have a poor prognosis. Thus, early diagnosis of the disease, associated with development of new therapeutic strategies, is essential to improve the survival of these patients. In this context, the identification of new biomarkers that can help detect, classify and define the prognosis of patients with colon cancer is of great interest. To date, there are no ideal biomarkers for colon cancer. The most commonly used colon cancer biomarkers, CA19.9 and the carcinoembryonic antigen, are both insufficient for diagnosis and prognosis in the early stages of disease due to their low specificity and sensitivity. However, recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of colon cancer carcinogenesis, and its vascular and lymphatic spread, are allowing the detection of new potential biomarkers to obtain early diagnoses and to improve the accuracy of these patients’ prognosis. This research has enabled the development of a large number of patents in recent years. This review focuses on the most recent colon cancer biomarker patents, based on the detection of genetic, epigenetic, protein and metabolic changes, and provides an overview of the biomarker impact on diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring treatment and the detection of relapse of these tumors.
Keywords: Biomarker, colorectal cancer, diagnosis, patent, prognosis.
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