Trial reportBiomolecules & biomedicine2026
Circulating tumor DNA as a prognostic biomarker in metastatic colorectal cancer: Post-hoc analysis of treatment response and survival outcomes in the ALTER-C-002 study.
Trial report in Biomolecules & biomedicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) derived from blood samples can serve as a minimally invasive, real-time indicator of tumor burden and treatment response in metastatic colorectal cancer. This study evaluated the association between baseline ctDNA levels and changes in ctDNA during treatment with response and survival outcomes in the phase II ALTER-C-002 trial, which investigated first-line anlotinib combined with capecitabine and oxaliplatin in patients with rat sarcoma (RAS) and B-Raf proto-oncogene (BRAF) wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer. In this post-hoc biomarker analysis, plasma samples were collected at baseline, near the best radiologic response (C1), and at the timepoint closest to disease progression or last follow-up (C2). These samples were analyzed using a 90-gene next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel, with ctDNA abundance quantified as maximum somatic allele frequency (MSAF), where MSAF <0.001 indicated ctDNA negativity. Biomarker data were obtained for 26 patients, 25 of whom had measurements at all three timepoints. Notably, baseline MSAF was higher in patients with liver-only metastasis (p=0.017). MSAF decreased significantly at C1 compared to baseline (p<0.001) and increased at C2 relative to C1 in patients exhibiting progressive disease (PD) (p<0.001); additionally, higher MSAF at C1 was associated with subsequent PD at C2 (p=0.015). All patients who tested ctDNA-negative at C1 achieved an objective response, and ctDNA negativity at this timepoint correlated with longer progression-free survival (PFS) (p=0.012) and overall survival (OS) (p=0.006) compared to ctDNA-positive patients. Furthermore, KRAS/BRAF mutations detected in ctDNA were linked to shorter PFS and OS (all p<0.05). In conclusion, baseline ctDNA burden and early ctDNA clearance may function as prognostic and on-treatment biomarkers of therapeutic efficacy in metastatic colorectal cancer, warranting prospective validation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.