Abstract:
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with a high mortality rate, especially in those that are diagnosed in late stages of the disease. The current screening blood‐based markers, such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19‐9 (CA19‐9), have low sensitivity and specificity. Meanwhile, other modalities are either expensive or invasive. Therefore, recent research has shifted towards a minimally invasive test, namely, liquid biopsy. Exosomes are favorable molecules sought in blood samples, since they are abundant, stable in circulation, and harbor genetic information and other biomolecules that could serve as biomarkers or even therapeutic targets. Furthermore, exosomal noncoding RNAs, such as miRNAs, lncRNAs, and circRNAs, have demonstrated the diagnostic potential to detect CRC at an early stage with a higher sensitivity and specificity than CEA and CA19‐9 alone. Moreover, they have prognostic potential that is TNM stage specific and could serve as predictive biomarkers for the most common chemotherapeutic drug and combination regimen in CRC, which are 5‐FU and FOLFOX, respectively. Therefore, in this review, we focus on the role of these exosomal noncoding RNAs as diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers. In addition, we discuss the advantages and challenges of exosomes as a liquid biopsy target. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
