Adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) is the standard clinical care for patients with stage III or high-risk stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) after curative-intent resection. Nonetheless, more than 30% of patients experience CRC recurrence. Accurate prediction of recurrence risk in stage II/III CRC patients who undergo ACT is crucial for determining the necessity and duration of ACT, as well as for tailoring novel treatment strategies for these patients.
This study will comprise three phases
1. A systematic and comprehensive CpG methylation-based epigenetic biomarker discovery phase to identify the differentially methylated CpG sites associated with recurrence-free survival (RFS) \< 5 years and \> 5 years. In this phase, LASSO-based machine learning algorithms will be used to optimize the biomarker candidates.
2. A tissue-based clinical assay development phase by quantitative pyrosequencing
3. An independent validation phase.
At completion, this study will validate a tissue-based assay to predict the development of recurrence after the completion of chemotherapy in patients with stage III and II CRC
