ReviewGene-to-screenChasing the personalized medicine dream through biomarker validation in colorectal cancer

•mCRC patients' survival outcomes pose major treatment challenge for oncologists.•Personalized medicine is an evolving approach for cancer management including mCRC.•New therapeutic concepts have diversified unresectable mCRC treatment strategies.•The interdisciplinary MPE is enabling identification of novel predictive biomarkers.•Validation of newly identified biomarkers is important for their clinical utility.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health burden worldwide. The optimal approach to the diagnosis, management, and treatment of CRC involves multidisciplinary and integrated management practices. The field is rapidly changing because of recent advancements in delineating the molecular basis of tumorigenesis, introduction of targeted therapy, varied patient response to mainstay chemotherapeutics, biological drugs, and the effective combination regimes being used for treatment. Recent meta-analysis studies, which tend to establish few clinically useful predictor biomarkers, identify inconsistent results and limitations of the trials. Therefore, molecular pathological epidemiology discipline initiatives are promising. Here, we provide an overview of the potential of biomarker validation for personalized medicine by focusing largely on metastatic (m)CRC. We also highlight new candidate predictive and prognostic biomarkers.