Metastatic Colon Cancer

Over 100,000 new cases of colon cancer are diagnosed in the United States alone annually. For patients who are surgically receptable, meaning they can undergo an operation for their colon cancer, we might not catch small clusters of cancer cells called micrometastases that might be around at the time of surgery, but are not detectable by current methods. For patients who have high risk tumor features or positive lymph nodes, the goal of postoperative systemic therapy which is delivered via the bloodstream is to try and get rid of some of these small clusters of cells, to really increase the cure rate. For patients who have non operable, metastatic colon cancer systemic therapies like chemotherapy and targeted therapies are used.