Helping to Decode Colorectal Cancer

If you are visiting this page because you, or someone you know, is living with, or facing, the possibility of having colorectal cancer (CRC for short), you’ve come to the right place. The first thing that you should know is that treatment for CRC today is not like in the past. Yes, the part of the body affected is the same. Yes, CRC is still a group of abnormal cells that have grown into what you might call a mass or a tumor. BUT the difference lies in what we know about the actual makeup of the tumor.

In case you missed, it, you can click here to read about biomarkers and why they are important, why you will want to know about them, and how they can help you. But as a quick summary, biomarkers are molecules that provide information about health and medical conditions that are used to help diagnose and treat illness and disease. In many cases, you may have biomarkers that are unique to your cancer, such as overexpression of certain proteins and alternations in DNA and RNA in the tumor. Think of them as the fingerprint of your cancer. Because of this information, healthcare professionals are now able to use this very specific information to determine if your cancer has any of those unique biomarkers, and in many cases, to prescribe medications that are most likely to work for your type of colon cancer. Testing for biomarkers is called genomic testing. 

If you are reading this, you are likely past the stage of routine screening. (If you are looking for information on screening, click here. If you are on the road to getting a diagnosis and starting treatment, you should ask your healthcare team if they have sent a sample of your tumor for genomic testing, to identify the fingerprints we just talked about. If your healthcare team did not send or was not able to obtain a sample of your tumor, they can also do what is called a “liquid biopsy” and take a blood sample for testing. If they have not done testing, you should discuss with your doctor to see if you should get testing. 

People with CRC may have no alterations in their tumor, they may have changes in the DNA of the cancer cell, they may have one such change, or they may have several. Certain biomarkers may be associated with the location of the tumor, depending on if the cancer begins on the right (KRAS, BRAF, MSI-H) or left side (HER2, FAP). The only way to learn whether your cancer has alterations is to have this type of biomarker testing. If you are wondering what these biomarkers are called, please know that there are dozens of them, but the most well-known of them are called KRAS, BRAF, NRAS, microsatellite instability (also known as MSI-H) so you may hear your healthcare provider mention them by name. You should also know that the list changes frequently and this is largely because new biomarkers (also called targets) become what is called actionable (meaning that you can do something with the information) when a new, or existing, drug is found to impact the target. The National Cancer Institute published a comprehensive list of biomarkers in a paper that you can find by clicking here.

You may be familiar with Labcorp because you’ve had lab tests done in one of their facilities. What you may not know is that Labcorp is also a leader in providing biomarker testing to healthcare providers around the world. As leading provider of innovative and comprehensive laboratory services, Labcorp has tests that can take you from the screening process all the way through your treatment and into your after-treatment check-ups.

In addition, there are biomarkers that can give the healthcare team a sense of whether or not patients will experience side effects due to the treatments they might receive which can be an important factor in determining the right treatment for each individual living with CRC. For all the reasons outlined above, if you haven’t had biomarker testing, you should discuss with your healthcare provider about it. 

We will end this blog exactly like we started it. Colorectal cancer treatment today is not like colorectal cancer treatment of the past. There are a lot of reasons to feel hopeful about your treatment options, and that is largely due to the testing technology available. 

If you would like to know more about this subject, please click here to learn more about what Labcorp is doing. Also, please click here to learn about our partners at the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.