Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the in-hospital diagnostic pathway of breast and colorectal cancer in the Netherlands: A population-based study

Background: In the Netherlands, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a temporary halt of population screening for cancer and limited hospital capacity for non-COVID care. We aimed to investigate the impact of the pandemic on the in-hospital diagnostic pathway of breast cancer (BC) and colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: 71,159 BC and 48,900 CRC...

Image analysis methods for dynamic hepatocyte-specific contrast enhanced MRI

Patients with colorectal cancer are frequently presented with liver metastases for which (partial) resection is often the best therapy. However, the future remnant liver, the remaining part of the liver after resection, should allow adequate liver function to avoid liver failure. This thesis presents novel methods for the accurate voxel-wise...

Comparing in vivo and ex vivo fiberoptic diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in colorectal cancer

In vivo data acquisition using fiberoptic diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is more complicated and less controlled compared to ex vivo data acquisition. It would be of great benefit if classifiers for in vivo tissue discrimination based on DRS could be trained on data obtained ex vivo. In this study, in vivo and ex vivo DRS measurements...

High-dimensional cytometric analysis of colorectal cancer reveals novel mediators of antitumour immunity

Objective: A comprehensive understanding of anticancer immune responses is paramount for the optimal application and development of cancer immunotherapies. We unravelled local and systemic immune profiles in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) by high-dimensional analysis to provide an unbiased characterisation of the immune contexture of...

Consensus molecular subtype classification of colorectal adenomas

Consensus molecular subtyping is an RNA expression-based classification system for colorectal cancer (CRC). Genomic alterations accumulate during CRC pathogenesis, including the premalignant adenoma stage, leading to changes in RNA expression. Only a minority of adenomas progress to malignancies, a transition that is associated with specific...

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy as a tool for real-time tissue assessment during colorectal cancer surgery

Colorectal surgery is the standard treatment for patients with colorectal cancer. To overcome two of the main challenges, the circumferential resection margin and postoperative complications, real-time tissue assessment could be of great benefit during surgery. In this ex vivo study, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) was used to...

Genomic Determinants of Protein Abundance Variation in Colorectal Cancer Cells

Assessing the impact of genomic alterations on protein networks is fundamental in identifying the mechanisms that shape cancer heterogeneity. We have used isobaric labeling to characterize the proteomic landscapes of 50 colorectal cancer cell lines and to decipher the functional consequences of somatic genomic variants. The robust...

Large variety in a panel of human colon cancer organoids in response to EZH2 inhibition

EZH2 inhibitors have gained great interest for their use as anti-cancer therapeutics. However, most research has focused on EZH2 mutant cancers and recently adverse effects of EZH2 inactivation have come to light. To determine whether colorectal cancer cells respond to EZH2 inhibition and to explore which factors influence the degree of response...

Colorectal cancer intrinsic subtypes predict chemotherapy benefit, deficient mismatch repair and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

In most colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, outcome cannot be predicted because tumors with similar clinicopathological features can have differences in disease progression and treatment response. Therefore, a better understanding of the CRC biology is required to identify those patients who will benefit from chemotherapy and to find a more...

Subtypes of primary colorectal tumors correlate with response to targeted treatment in colorectal cell lines

Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a heterogeneous and biologically poorly understood disease. To tailor CRC treatment, it is essential to first model this heterogeneity by defining subtypes of patients with homogeneous biological and clinical characteristics and second match these subtypes to cell lines for which extensive pharmacological...

The Relationship Between Distal and Proximal Colonic Neoplasia: A Meta-Analysis

To investigate the association between proximal colonic neoplasia and distal lesions as a function of the lesion type. The extent to which health, demographic, and study characteristics moderate this association was also examined.