Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. It has been estimated that more than one-third of patients are diagnosed when CRC has already spread to the lymph nodes. One out of five patients is diagnosed with metastatic CRC. The stage of diagnosis influences treatment outcome and survival. Notwithstanding the recent advances in multidisciplinary management and treatment of CRC, patients are still reluctant to undergo screening tests because of the associated invasiveness and discomfort (e.g., colonoscopy with biopsies). Moreover, the serological markers currently used for diagnosis are not reliable and, even if they were useful to detect disease recurrence after treatment, they are not always detected in patients with CRC (e.g., CEA). Recently, translational research in CRC has produced a wide spectrum of potential biomarkers that could be useful for diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of these patients. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the newer noninvasive or minimally invasive biomarkers of CRC. Here, we discuss imaging and biomolecular diagnostics ranging from their potential usefulness to obtain early and less-invasive diagnosis to their potential implementation in the development of a bespoke treatment of CRC.

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We focus on the diagnostic and therapeutic problems of duodenal adenocarcinoma, reporting a case and reviewing the literature. A 65-year old man with adenocarcinoma in the third duodenal portion was successfully treated with a segmental resection of the third part of the duodenum, avoiding a duodeno-cephalopancreatectomy. This tumor is very rare and frequently affects the Ⅲ and Ⅳ duodenal portion. A precocious diagnosis and the exact localization of this neoplasia are crucial factors in order to decide the surgical strategy. Given a non-specificity of symptoms, endoscopy with biopsy is the diagnostic gold standard. Duodeno-cephalo-pancreatectomy (DCP) and segmental resection of the duodenum (SRD) are the two surgical options, with overlapping morbidity (27% vs 18%) and post operative mortality (3% vs 1%). The average incidence of postoperative long-term survival is 100%, 73.3% and 31.6% of cases after 1, 3 and 5 years from surgery, respectively. Long-term survival is made worse by two factors: the presence of metastatic lymph nodes and tumor localization in the proximal duodenum. The two surgical options are radical: DCP should be used only for proximal localizations while SRD should be chosen for distal localizations.

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