DACHS - IMPACT - Prognosis

IMPACT: Improving long-term prognosis and quality of life of patients with colorectal cancer

Despite improvements in treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), patient variability in treatment outcome is still frequently observed. Treatment outcome mainly depends on stage at diagnosis but there is also major variation in prognosis within groups of patients with the same tumor stage which is largely unexplained. Surgery is the primary treatment in CRC. Depending on CRC stage, patients receive radiation or chemotherapy in advance or after surgery. Several chemotherapeutic agents are approved in Germany. Individual differences in patients' response to therapy and in survival after specific types of chemotherapy might be in part influenced by genetic variation such as in drug metabolism and tumour immune response.
Candidate gene as well as genome-wide association studies will be conducted to identify genetic variants which affect overall as well as progression free survival according to chemotherapy type.

This project involves patients of the DACHS study and is part of a network investigating long-term prognosis in colorectal cancer patients called IMPACT. Replication of promising findings will be carried out in collaboration with the International Survival Analysis in Colorectal cancer Consortium (ISACC).

Collaboration:
Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research (DKFZ)
ISACC (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Seattle, Washington, USA)