Integrative Prediction Models For Metastasis Risk In Colon Cancer

Funding: R01CA158472  PIs: Chen X, Beauchamp RD

While adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer results in an overall survival benefit, 42 to 44% of stage III patients will not recur in five years even without adjuvant treatment. Conversely, clinical trials have failed to demonstrate an overall benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage II colon cancer; however, a subset of high-risk patients may benefit from adjuvant treatment. Thus, an accurate and reliable method of determining risk of recurrence, and corresponding likelihood of benefit of systemic therapy, is greatly needed.

To accurately identify personal risk, clinical, demographic, pathologic, and somatic mutation data all must be incorporated with gene expression; to incorporate these various data, we propose to conduct research to develop an integrative metastatic risk prediction model that allows for integration of diverse types of data.

Our long-term goal is to develop a clinically useful metastasis score from diverse type of data that can be applied to stage II and III colon cancer patients for the purpose of reducing mortality, morbidity, and the cost associated with colon cancer and colon cancer treatment.