Molecular Advances in Colorectal Cancer Treatment Modalities

Call for Papers

Colorectal cancer genetics is at the forefront of the personalized oncologic management. Predicting treatment response by KRAS mutation testing is just the beginning of the use of genetic markers for directing the care of colorectal cancer patients. Knowledge of the underlying genetic mechanisms of tumorigenesis and the potential of specific genetic lesions for clinical decision making is expected to become part of knowledge for physicians managing this cancer. The ability to predict response to a treatment would spare those patients who would respond poorly or might alter the subsequent surgical management for responding patients.

The main focus of this special issue will be on colorectal cancer genetic markers that show promise for their use in defining treatment strategies selection and in achieving improved prognosis. We particularly take an interest in manuscripts that report relevance of biomarkers for predicting response to neoadjuvant regimens, for offering optimal selection of patients' subpopulations to chemotherapy or targeted treatments, and for being included in a panel of other specific, sensitive, and reproducible prognostication indices and tools for clinical guidance. Reviews that summarize the results of clinical trials focusing on therapy response prediction are welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Clinically relevant mechanisms of genomic and epigenomic instability
• Clinically relevant mechanisms of chromosomal alterations
• Role of specific genetic alterations in treatment response and patients' selection
• Role of specific pathways' deregulation in treatment response and patients' selection
• Biomarkers as predictors of targeted treatments
• Biomarkers as predictors or response to preoperative chemoradiation for rectal cancer
• Predictive molecular markers for response to conventional chemotherapy
• Future directions and clinical trials (reviews)

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/grp/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• George E. Theodoropoulos, First Department of Propaedeutic Surgery of Athens Medical School, Hippocration Hospital of Athens, 7 Semitelou Street, 11528 Athens, Greece

Guest Editors

• Monique Maas, Department of Radiology, Maastricht University Medical Centre, P.O. Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands
• Maria Gazouli, Department of Biology, School of Medicine, University of Athens, 15784 Athens, Greece
• Leonardo Sechi, Section of Experimental and Clinical Microbiology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Sassari's University, Viale San Pietro 43/B, 07100 Sassari, Italy