Researchers from Rutgers Cancer Institute have discovered a mechanism to explain what drives the formation of mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma (MAC), a rare subtype of colorectal cancer (CRC), as well as identifying the genes responsible for the regulation of this mechanism.

A mother-to-be living with obesity could be increasing the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) in her adult children, according to a study of more than 18,000 mother and child pairs, according to a study ‘Maternal obesity, pregnancy weight gain, and birth weight and risk of colorectal cancer’, published online in the journal Gut. The findings suggest that conditions in the womb may be key risk factors for the disease and help to explain rising rates of the disease among younger adults, the researchers stated.

Early-onset colorectal cancer is unlikely to be a different disease from average-onset colorectal cancer, according to a paper, ‘A comprehensive comparison of early-onset and average-onset colorectal cancers’, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons has published an updated set of evidence-based recommendations for management of colonic volvulus – as well as for a rare condition called acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (ACPO), which can mimic the symptoms of large bowel obstruction. The updated guidelines were published in Diseases of the Colon & Rectum (DC&R), the official journal of the American Society of Colon & Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS), published by Wolters Kluwer.

Consuming higher amounts of Vitamin D - mainly from dietary sources - may help protect against developing young-onset colorectal cancer or precancerous colon polyps, according to the first study to show such an association.

Common hypertension drugs may improve survival for patients with colorectal cancer, according to researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Department of Public Health Sciences. After reviewing outcomes of almost 14,000 patients with colorectal cancer, researchers determined that ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers and thiazide diuretics were all associated with decreased mortality. They also found that patients who took their blood pressure drugs consistently were less likely to die from their cancer.

In a global survey carried out by the European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP), only 6% of respondents had received direction on sustainable surgery at a national level, with just the same proportion receiving guidance from their employer. In addition, almost three-quarters (74%) of surgeons have not received any guidance to improve the sustainability of their practice.

Panther Healthcare has launched the Smart Powered Stapler platform that offers intelligent and automatic control over tissue compression, transection and resection for gastrointestinal (including bariatric), thoracic, colorectal, oncology, gynaecologic and other open and laparoscopic surgical procedures. The device has been released in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Latin America.

The outcomes from a real-world study have revealed that the Echelon Circular Powered Stapler was associated with a 74% reduction in anastomotic leak rates (1.8% vs. 6.9%) and a 44% reduction in 30-day inpatient hospital readmission rates (6.1% vs.10.8%) after colorectal surgery, compared with manual circular staplers.

Faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) may assist healthcare professionals to identify which younger patients with higher risk symptoms may require colonoscopy or other diagnostics to further determine if they have colorectal cancer (CRC) or other serious bowel diseases, according to the outcomes from the NICE FIT Study.

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, in collaboration with national and international researchers, have identified a genetic mutation in a small number of children with a rare type of inflammatory bowel disease. The discovery of the mutation, which weakens the activity of a protein linked to how the immune system fights viruses in the gut, may help researchers pinpoint the cause of more common bowel diseases, investigators say.

The Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CU Medicine) has developed the world’s first faecal “bacterial gene markers” test (M3) based on metagenomic analysis of over 1,100 cancer subjects. The sensitivity of this non-invasive test is 94% for colorectal cancer detection which is comparable to that of a colonoscopy. The test can also accurately detect polyp recurrence with over 90% sensitivity. It is believed to be the first test to offer a non-invasive approach to screen for polyp recurrence.

Researchers at City of Hope who were investigating the most common type of metastatic colorectal cancer discovered that these patients are more responsive to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, an innovative treatment that helps the immune system recognize and attack cancerous cells, if tumours have not spread to the liver.

Diet, more than body mass, may play a role in the risk for gut infection, and eating more fibre could be the key to prevention, according to a study, ‘Low dietary fiber promotes enteric expansion of a Crohn's disease-associated pathobiont independent of obesity’, published online in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism.

A group of researchers from China and the US have sought to identify several molecular biomarkers corresponding to pathways involved in specific biologic therapy response against ulcerative colitis (UC) for their ability to non-response predictive potential. Their findings, ‘Potential molecular biomarkers used to predict the response to biological therapies in ulcerative colitis’, were published as a comprehensive review in Chinese Medical Journal.

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health investigating why do right-sided and left-sided colon cancers differ, why are right-sided ones more dangerous and why do women get more of them are centring their research on metabolites and their role in human health, particularly in colorectal cancer.

The investigators of the EAGLE study - an international service improvement study to investigate the value of an educational tool delivered to surgeons and their teams to reduce the risk of anastomotic leak (leak of a join in the bowel) after right hemicolectomy or ileocaecal resection – are encouraging more hospitals and surgeons to become involved in the study.

The first patient has been treated in the DESTINY-Gastric04, a global phase 3 trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of ENHERTU (trastuzumab deruxtecan), compared to ramucirumab/paclitaxel combination therapy in patients with HER2 positive metastatic and/or unresectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma with disease progression on or after a trastuzumab-containing regimen.

An international research group has reported that the Neuraminidase 3 (Neu3) enzyme is responsible for the onset and progression of colitis. Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were based on a model of recurrent human food poisoning previously linked with the condition. The findings represent a scientific advance toward a targeted therapy to help the millions of people worldwide affected by the disorder.

Molecules released into the bloodstream during exercise (such as small proteins) can act directly on bowel cancer cells to slow down their growth. research has shown that regular physical activity reduces the risk of developing bowel cancer. This is mainly thought to happen because physical activity can help individuals to maintain a healthy body weight.

NEC Corporation is developing an AI technology for supporting doctors in determining if colorectal lesions are neoplastic or non-neoplastic. A new technology called, Cx20, has already met the requirements for CE marking and will be integrated in the medical device AI diagnostic support software WISE VISION Endoscopy, with sales expected to start in Europe later in 2021.

Geneoscopy has enrolled the first patients in the CRC-PREVENT pivotal trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Geneoscopy's noninvasive, at-home diagnostic screening test to successfully detect colorectal neoplasms, including advanced adenomas, in average-risk individuals, a group with no known co-morbidities associated with cancer risk and therefore more challenging to diagnose. The company's innovative diagnostic was granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA in January of 2020.

A higher intake of ultra-processed food is associated with higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a study, ‘Association of ultra-processed food intake with risk of inflammatory bowel disease: prospective cohort study’, published in The BMJ. Inflammatory bowel disease is more common in industrialised nations and it is thought that dietary factors might play a role, but data linking ultra-processed food intake with IBD are limited.

Through a complex, self-reinforcing feedback mechanism, colorectal cancer cells make room for their own expansion by driving surrounding healthy intestinal cells to death, while simultaneously fuelling their own growth. This feedback loop is driven by an activator of the innate immune system, according to researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University of Heidelberg, who discovered this mechanism in the intestinal tissue of fruit flies.

Growth impairment, a common complication of Crohn's disease in children, occurs more often in males than females, but the reasons are unclear. Now, a physician-scientist from Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian and colleagues at eight other centres have found that factors associated with statural growth differ by sex.

Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson have announced three-year data from the long-term extension (LTE) of the STELARA (ustekinumab) Phase 3 UNIFI study that demonstrated the majority (55.2 percent) of adult patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) who initially responded to treatment with STELARA sustained symptomatic remission rates at nearly three years (week 152). Furthermore, a majority (96.4 percent) of the patients in symptomatic remission at week 152 were corticosteroid-free.

The European Society of Coloproctology is launching its #SustainableSurgery campaign, month-long focus on sustainability aims to create a movement among the colorectal community that focuses on the health of the planet, as well as of the health of patients. The day-to-day activities of the healthcare sector contribute greatly to climate change. A 2019 Lancet report suggests that 4.6% of all global greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to the sector.

The FDA has approved an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) amendment for Bold Therapeutics’ BOLD-100-001, allowing for the addition of clinical trial sites in the US. BOLD-100-001 is an open-label, multicentre two-stage study designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of BOLD-100 in combination with FOLFOX (5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin) chemotherapy in patients with advanced gastric, pancreatic, colorectal and bile duct cancers.

World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has announced two new studies, which report that a reduction in sedentary behaviour has a positive impact on the quality of life after colorectal cancer (CRC). The first study, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, analysed nearly 400 bowel cancer survivors for two years to assess how sedentary behaviour and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity impact health-related quality of life and fatigue.

Inadequate exposure to UVB light from the sun may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, particularly in older age groups, according to a study, ‘Could age increase the strength of inverse association between ultraviolet B exposure and colorectal cancer?’, published in BMC Public Health.

Patients with obesity and colorectal cancer receive lower cumulative doses of adjuvant chemotherapy, relative to their body surface area (BSA), than patients without obesity, according to the results from a large meta-analysis reported at the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2021.

Doctors and patients are being advised to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use following new data suggesting that these medicines may increase the risk of colon cancer, especially in people under 50 years.

Scientists from the Francis Crick Institute and King's College London studying colorectal cancer have found that levels of specific immune cells are the best predictors of whether immunotherapy will be effective in individual patients.

Researchers from the University of Houston biomedical have reported a step forward in diagnosing intestinal diseases, including colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease using stool proteins. The current gold standard for colon cancer testing measures blood (haemoglobin) present in stool, and tests for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) measure levels of calprotectin, a protein that detects inflammation in the intestines.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed a designer probiotic - a thoughtfully engineered yeast that can induce multiple effects for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Previous research by Dr Francisco Quintana, an investigator in the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham, and colleagues, has helped illuminate the connection between the gut and diseases that affect the brain, suggesting potential applications for engineering probiotics beyond IBD.

Research led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and the University of Liverpool may explain why many cancer patients do not respond to anti-PD-1 cancer immunotherapies also called checkpoint inhibitors. The team reported that these patients may have tutors with high numbers of T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells.

ModifyHealth, together with Monash University, Australia, have entered a partnership that will seek to raise further awareness in the US of the FODMAP diet protocol and the Monash University FODMAP Diet App, which have helped millions of people manage irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The partnership will increase engagement with US consumers and healthcare providers, and expand awareness of the latest research and developments of the FODMAP diet protocol.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher have revealed the genomic landscape of tumours that have grown resistant to drugs targeting the abnormal KRASG12C protein. Their work shows that, far from adopting a common route to becoming resistant, the cells take a strikingly diverse set of avenues, often several at a time.

Manipulating the gut microbiome to produce 'beneficial' commensal microbes, which protect the host from pathogens and can boost immune responses, among other things, could potentially help patients respond better to cancer drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy.

Final results from a study of a blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer have shown that it is accurate enough to be rolled out as a multi-cancer screening test among people at higher risk of the disease, including patients aged 50 years or older, without symptoms.

Patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) enrolled in the US military's universal health care system experienced improved survival compared with patients in the general population, according to the results from a study, ‘Comparison of Survival among Colon Cancer Patients in the U.S. Military Health System and Patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program’, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Ethicon has launched the ENSEAL X1 Curved Jaw Tissue Sealer, a new advanced bipolar energy device, which the company claims increases procedural efficiency1 and provided stronger sealing2 and better access to more tissue than LigaSure Maryland33 The device is indicated for colorectal, gynecological, bariatric surgery and thoracic procedures.

There is a survival benefit associated with early-onset colorectal cancer (CRC) compared with later-onset CRC reinforcing the importance of early CRC detection in the younger population, according to researchers at Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, CT.The outcomes were featured in the paper, ‘Analysis of Survival Among Adults With Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer in the National Cancer Database', published in JAMA Open Network.

Researchers from the Department of Medicine III of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna have shown that in most cases, Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is associated with bacterial biofilms in the gut that are visible under endoscopic examination.

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified specific patterns of DNA damage triggered by diets rich in red meat, further implicating the food as a carcinogen while heralding the possibility of detecting the cancer early and designing new treatments. The findings featured in the paper, ‘Discovery and features of an alkylating signature in colorectal cancer’, published in Cancer Discovery, also reported increased cancer-related mortality in patients with colorectal cancer.

Drugs that are being trialled to treat leukaemia could also be used to fight bowel cancer according to researchers from Hudson Institute of Medical Research scientists. In a world-first, researchers found that the drugs could potentially be used to fight bowel cancer, using Nobel Prize-winning genetic screening technology CRISPR.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has approved the combined use of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) for patients who have previously been treated metastatic bowel cancer in England.

Targovax has announced that the ONCOS-102 and durvalumab trial in patients with advanced peritoneal malignancies has completed enrolment in the colorectal cancer cohort. This phase 1/2 trial is investigating the safety, biologic and anti-tumour activity of ONCOS-102 in combination with Imfinzi (durvalumab, anti-PD-L1) in patients with advanced peritoneal malignancies who have failed prior standard chemotherapy and have histologically confirmed platinum-resistant or refractory epithelial ovarian or colorectal cancer.

Researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich’s (LMU) Institute of Pathology have discovered a gene called 14-3-3sigma that functions as a tumour suppressor in gastrointestinal cancers. Using the mouse as an experimental model, the team demonstrated that inactivation of the 14-3-3sigma gene enhance progression of gastrointestinal cancers and consequently shortens the lifespan of mice. The findings were featured in the study, '4-3-3σ Functions as an Intestinal Tumor Suppressor', published in Cancer Research.

Results from the OMICS study, an international, multi-centre study, has revealed that Universal DX's blood test can detect colorectal advanced adenomas at 55% sensitivity and 90% specificity, which exceeds currently available non-invasive tests for colorectal cancer screening 80% of sporadic colorectal cancers arise from pre-malignant advanced adenomas, according to the company. The results were announced at the European Association of Cancer Research (EACR) 2021 virtual conference. 

Activ Surgical, the company that completed the world’s first autonomous robotic surgery of soft tissue, has introduced hardware-agnostic surgical software that allows surgical systems to collaborate with surgeons. Activ Surgical’s patent-protected surgical software platform reduces unintended and preventable surgical complications by enhancing a surgeon’s intra-operative decision making. ActivInsights software suite is a proprietary augmented reality (AR)-based bundle that offers real time tissue assessment in the form of previously unavailable visual overlays.

Researchers at MIT and their collaborators have designed a new type of stent that could be used to deliver drugs to the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract, or other tubular organs in the body. The stents are coated in a smooth layer of plastic etched with small "needles" that pop up when the tube is stretched, allowing the needles to penetrate tissue and deliver a payload of drug-containing microparticles. Those drugs are then released over an extended period of time after the stent is removed.

Black people have a higher risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) than white people, but this risk is likely not due to genetics, according to data from a study by researchers from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University School of Medicine. The study, 'Prevalence of Advanced Colorectal Neoplasia in Veterans', was published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology.

Seventy percent of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients reported concern about side effects from the vaccines, according to a published survey at the beginning of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The findings were reported in the study, ‘Adverse Events Following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination’, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Surgeons can ease their patients' pain from common operations without prescribing opioids, and avoid the possibility of starting someone on a path to long-term use, two studies suggests. Treating post-surgery pain with non-opioid pain medications such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen didn't lead to higher pain levels or more serious issues during recovery, and didn't dampen patients' satisfaction with their care, according to the results from a study of more than 22,000 patients who had one of seven common operations at 70 hospitals.

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has been focusing its research on better understanding the molecular-level characteristics of the cell lining - known as the epithelium - of the colon in order to define how cancer may begin there.

In a new study, a team led by Dr Kamen Simeonov, a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and School of Veterinary Medicine professor Christopher Lengner has made strides toward deepening that understanding by tracking the development of metastatic cells. Their work used a mouse model of pancreatic cancer and cutting-edge techniques to trace the lineage and gene expression patterns of individual cancer cells.

An Arizona State University study led by Mana and her team has shown in greater detail than ever before of how high fat diets can trigger a molecular cascade of events that leads to intestinal and colon cancer. The study, ‘High-fat diet-activated fatty acid oxidation mediates intestinal stemness and tumorigenicity’, published in Cell Reports.

The FDA has granted BOLD-100 (Bold Therapeutics) an Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) in the treatment of gastric cancer. BOLD-100 is a first-in-class ruthenium-based small molecule therapeutic that alters the unfolded protein response (UPR) through selective GRP78 inhibition and induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) which causes DNA damage and cell cycle arrest.

New data presented at the 2021 Digestive Disease Week has reported that Cologuard (mt-sDNA) provided the greatest reduction in CRC incidence versus annual faecal immunochemical test (FIT) and annual faecal occult blood test (FOBT) in a representative Medicare population.

The FDA has approved EndoFresh’s Disposable Digestive Endoscopy System that features a camera system with innovative all-in-one design, disposable upper GI endoscope and disposable colonoscope, which are used together with the medical display and other peripheral devices to allow physicians to visualise, diagnose and operate gastrointestinal endoscopy.

The FDA has approved Bristol Myers Squibb’s Zeposia (ozanimod) 0.92mg for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC). Zeposia (ozanimod) is a sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator that binds with high affinity to S1P receptors 1 and 5. Zeposia reduces the capacity of lymphocytes to migrate from lymphoid tissue, reducing the number of circulating lymphocytes in peripheral blood.

Lithium could boost the fitness of healthy stem cells in the gut, making them more resistant to sabotage from mutant stem cells that cause cancer, according to researchers in the Netherlands, funded by the UK charity Worldwide Cancer Research. They have initiated a clinical trial to find out if Lithium - a commonly used psychiatric drug - could be used to prevent bowel cancer in people.

Researchers from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology  of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) and the University of Cambridge have reported that Red2Onco, an innovative genetic mouse model, can detect the very initial steps that lead to cancer development. Red2Onco's multicolour labelling system allows to trace intestinal tumour development after the first oncogenic hit at the single cell level. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Tracing oncogene-driven remodelling of the intestinal stem cell niche’, published in Nature.

A biomarker in the blood of patients with bowel cancer may provide valuable insight into the risk of cancer relapse after surgery and the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

An international team of scientists have identified key factors underpinning the development of colorectal cancer in patients with a genetic predisposition to the disease. The study, 'NOTUM from Apc-mutant cells biases clonal competition to initiate cancer', published in Nature, was led by researchers at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute at the University of Glasgow and the University of Helsinki.

A novel form of macrophage-based immunotherapy is effective at treating a broad spectrum of cancers, including colorectal cancer (CRC) and those at advanced stages, according to a ground-breaking study led by Georgia State immunology professor Yuan Liu. The researchers found that local radiation therapy (RT) cured colorectal cancer and two types of pancreatic cancer in SIRPα-deficient mice with advanced tumours. The findings are significant, given that colorectal and pancreatic cancers are often treatment-resistant with high mortality rates.

A surgical technique developed at University College Dublin uses artificial intelligence to detect cancerous tissue in real time during surgery could radically improve health outcomes. The new method demonstrates how with the use of a digital camera and dyes, cancer processes in living tissue can be viewed during an operation, allowing surgeons to see the exact extent of cancers during a procedure, ensuring that the maximum amount of cancerous tissue is surgically removed.

A consortium of bacteria designed to complement missing or underrepresented functions in the imbalanced microbiome of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, prevented and treated chronic immune-mediated colitis - in humanised mouse models. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Rationally designed bacterial consortia to treat chronic immune-mediated colitis and restore intestinal homeostasis’, published in Nature Communications.

The American Gastroenterological Association has released new clinical guidelines outlining the benefits and risks of each drug currently available to Crohn's patients. Based on this research, AGA recommends the early introduction of biologics for patients experiencing luminal and fistulising Crohn's disease rather than waiting until other treatments fail. These guidelines, ‘AGA Clinical Practice Guideline on the Medical Management of Moderate to Severe Luminal and Fistulizing Crohn's Disease’, were published in Gastroenterology.

Researchers from The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, have developed a prognostic model that effectively predicted early-onset complications leading to surgery and screened aggressive Crohn’s disease (CD), which will enable physicians to customise therapeutic strategies and monitor disease. They identified age, extraintestinal manifestations, previous surgery, perianal disease and disease duration as independent factors associated with complications leading to surgery in patients with Crohn’s Disease.

An artificial intelligence tool under development at Duke University can be added to the standard toilet to help analyse patients' stool and give gastroenterologists the information they need to provide appropriate treatment, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2021. The new technology could assist in managing chronic gastrointestinal issues such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Several non-genetic factors - including greater red meat intake, lower educational attainment and heavier alcohol use - are associated with an increase in colorectal cancer (CRC) in people under 50. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Nongenetic Determinants of Risk for Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer’ published in JNCI Cancer Spectrum.

Patients' irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms unexpectedly improved when they were under COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, reaffirming the gut-brain connection in functional gastrointestinal disorders, according to the study, ‘Gut-brain axis and irritable bowel syndrome during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. A survey-based study (abstract Su093), presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2021.

Researchers Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have reported that screening endoscopy for persons older than 75 in otherwise good health can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer incidence and cancer-related death by approximately 40%. The researchers also found, however, that screening did not provide a significant survival benefit for individuals older than 75 with cardiovascular disease, diabetes or three or more other health conditions.

Scientists can use genetic 'weather forecasting' to predict how long it will take for colorectal cancer (CRC) to evolve resistance to a drug before a patient has even started treatment, a study by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust has shown.

The risk of developing colorectal cancer risk (CRC) increases after bariatric surgery, according to a study presented at Digestive Disease Week by researchers from Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon and The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Their findings were outlined in the study, ‘The impact of bariatric surgery on colorectal cancer risk: a matched analysis using a nationwide US cohort’ (Presentation Number: Sa025), after the investigators assessed CRC risk using a large US cohort and after accounting for multiple confounders.

Eating a Western diet impairs the immune system in the gut in ways that could increase risk of infection and inflammatory bowel disease, according to a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis and Cleveland Clinic.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended that individuals of average risk for colorectal cancer (CRC) should begin screening exams at 45 years of age instead of the traditional 50. The guideline changes updates its 2016 recommendations and aligns them with those of the American Cancer Society, which lowered the age for initiation of screening to 45 years in 2018. The guidelines were published in the paper, ‘Screening for Colorectal Cancer - US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement’, in JAMA.

Rice University researchers have engineered a strain of the gut bacteria E. coli that senses pH and glows when it encounters acidosis, an acidic condition that often occurs during flareups of inflammatory bowel diseases like colitis, ileitis and Crohn's disease.

A new mobile digital therapeutic, Zemedy, offers resources centred around cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that focus on gut-brain miscommunication and hypersensitivity around gut sensations happening for someone with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects up to 10% of the US population and costs upwards of US$1 billion a year in medical bills and lost productivity, according to Penn clinical psychologist Melissa Hunt, who has spent 15 years studying the condition.

Cancer death rates have fallen dramatically in the United States, but factor in obesity, as researchers did at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, and the picture changes. Based on mortality data for 50 million people, deaths from cancers not associated with obesity (lung cancer and skin cancer etc) are declining at a rate almost three times faster than cancers linked to obesity, such as stomach, colorectal, uterine, thyroid and postmenopausal breast cancer.

People with a high polygenic risk score for colorectal cancer could benefit more at preventing the disease by leading healthy lifestyles than those at lower genetic risk, according to a study ‘Healthy lifestyles, genetic modifiers, and colorectal cancer risk: a prospective cohort study in the UK Biobank’, by Vanderbilt researchers published in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have moved a step closer to possible clinical testing of a mouse model that includes immune-reactive T cells from patients with Crohn's disease in a flagellin peptide-specific immunotherapy, which might provide similar benefits in patients.

Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, led by Dr Payam Gammage, and in collaboration with scientists at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the US led by Dr Ed Reznik, have revealed the substantial impact mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can have in cancer. Understanding this could offer up new indicators of disease prognosis and provide a new focus for future therapeutics.

Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found a link between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer in women under age 50. The findings suggest that heavy consumption of sugary drinks during adolescence (ages 13 to 18) and adulthood can increase the disease risk.

Lexington Medical has announced that the company has achieved over 10,000 successful surgeries with the AEON Endostapler for multiple specialties across multiple countries.

Patients with one or more health conditions are more likely to be screened for colorectal cancer than those without comorbidities, according to researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch Hospitals in Galveston, TX. The outcomes were featured in the paper, ‘National disparities in colorectal cancer screening in patients with comorbid conditions: an analysis of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System’, published in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.

In the largest registry study to date, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Harvard University in the USA, have reported a possible connection between colorectal polyps in close relatives and the risk of developing colorectal cancer. The study, ‘Risk of colorectal cancer in first degree relatives of patients with colorectal polyps: nationwide case-control study in Sweden’, published in the British Medical Journal, is of potential consequence for different countries' screening procedures.

University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have uncovered a new way to potentially target and treat late-stage colorectal cancer by identifying a novel mechanism by which colorectal cancer cells evade an anti-tumour immune response, which helped them develop an exosome-based therapeutic strategy to potentially treat the disease.

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) are treating necrotising enterocolitis with a human placental-derived stem cell (hPSC) therapy strategy that is showing promising results, they reported that stem cell therapy promoted healing of the intestinal damage at both the cellular and whole tissue levels.

People who take infliximab for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) should not assume they are protected after a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, after a large-scale study found many had poor antibody responses. The research measured antibody responses after vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 865 people treated with infliximab, an anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) biologic drug.

Most individuals with an average risk of colorectal cancer said they would prefer a stool-based screening test for colorectal cancer over colonoscopy, the method most often recommended by health care providers, according to results of a study, ‘National Survey of Patient Factors Associated with Colorectal Cancer Screening Preferences’, was published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

A test which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to measure proteins present in some patients with advanced bowel colorectal cancer (CRC) could hold the key to more targeted treatment, according to researchers published today at the University of Leeds and Roche Diagnostics, and will help doctors and patients to decide on the best treatment options.

Researchers from Toho University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan, have discovered that Interleukin (IL)-11 (IL-11+) cells in the colon of mice have colitis-associated colorectal cancer, the IL-11+ cells were absent from the colon under normal conditions but rapidly appeared in the tissues of mice with colitis and colorectal cancer. These results were reported in the paper, ‘Interleukin-11-expressing fibroblasts have a unique gene signature correlated with poor prognosis of colorectal cancer’, published in Nature Communications.

Intestinal epithelial tight junctions (TJs) act as a functional and structural barrier against harmful antigens that promote intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other inflammatory conditions of the gut. A defective intestinal TJ barrier, sometimes known as "leaky gut," plays an important role in exacerbating and prolonging intestinal inflammation.

Scientists at City of Hope have developed a novel, non-invasive liquid biopsy test for detecting lymph node metastasis in individuals with high-risk T1 colorectal carcinoma. Research on the development of the blood test was reported in a study, ‘A Liquid Biopsy Assay for Noninvasive Identification of Lymph Node Metastases in T1 Colorectal Cancer’, published in Gastroenterology, a journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

A Mayo Clinic study has reported that one in six patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) had an inherited cancer-related gene mutation, which likely predisposed them to the disease. In the study, ‘Use of Family History and Genetic Testing to Determine Risk of Colorectal Cancer’, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, researchers within the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine also discovered that 60% of these cases would not have been detected if relying on a standard guideline-based approach.

NHS England announced a pilot programme that will offer some people with potential bowel cancer symptoms a colon capsule endoscopy, instead of the more invasive colonoscopy test. It is a small pilot at the moment, with 40 centres signed up and 11,000 pill cameras available.

The American College of Gastroenterology has published updated recommendations for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, ‘ACG Clinical Guidelines: Colorectal Cancer Screening 2021’, in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. The latest guidelines are an update from the 2009 American College of Gastroenterology CRC screening guidelines.

A group of researchers from Osaka University have determined a specific molecular mechanism that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) uses to adapt to growing in the human stomach for long periods of time. Reporting their findings, ‘A bacterial small RNA regulates the adaptation of Helicobacter pylori to the host environment’, in Nature Communications, they found that a small RNA molecule called, HPnc4160, plays a key role in how H. pylori invades the stomach and leads to disease.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, in collaboration with the Candiolo Cancer Institute in Italy and the Netherlands Cancer Institute, have used state-of-the-art patient derived organoid models to gather information about Werner Helicase (WRN), in cancers that had become resistant to standard treatment.

Research by Yale Cancer Center shows patients with early-onset colorectal cancer, age 50 and younger, have a better survival rate than patients diagnosed with the disease later in life, according to a study presented virtually at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting.

Medtronic has announced that the FDA has granted de novo clearance for GI Genius intelligent endoscopy module, the first and only commercially available computer-aided detection (CADe) system using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify colorectal polyps. The module, compatible with any colonoscope video, provides physicians with a powerful new solution in the fight against colorectal cancer, the third most common form of cancer globally with 1.8 million new cases in 2018.1

People with Crohn's disease are typically treated with powerful anti-inflammatory medications that act throughout their body, not just in their digestive tract, creating the potential for unintended, and often serious, side effects. Certain immune cells in the small intestine have evolved a molecular sensing mechanism to protect themselves from the toxic effects of high bile acid concentrations there, this sensory mechanism can be manipulated with small drug-like molecules, and the treatment was found to reduce small bowel inflammation in mice.

IV contrast-enhanced 2-millisievert CT (2-mSv CT) is comparable to conventional-dose CT (CDCT) for the diagnosis of right colonic diverticulitis, according to the outcomes from a randomised controlled trial data including more than 3,000 patients.

Mitochondrial DNA mutations in colorectal tumours increases the chances of survival for patients, according to a study funded by Cancer Research UK. Scientists reporting their findings in a paper in Nature Metabolism. ‘Respiratory complex and tissue lineage drive recurrent mutations in tumour mtDNA’, found that patients with colorectal cancer had a 57 to 93% decreased risk of death from their cancer, depending on the presence and type of mitochondrial DNA mutations in their tumours.

Researchers at McMaster University have identified a strain of adherent-invasive E-coli (AIEC) that is strongly implicated in the condition and is often found in the intestines of people with Crohn's disease. By mutating every gene in a particular strain of AIEC and testing how those mutants grow in mice, the researchers were able to pinpoint which genes allowed the bacteria to freely colonize the gut linings of people with Crohn's disease.

Laparoscopic rectal mobilisation and urogenital separation appears to be a safe alternative to open surgery in eligible patients with cloacal malformations, according to the outcomes from a study by the team in the Colorectal and Pelvic Malformation Center at Boston Children's Hospital. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘A New Approach to Cloaca: Laparoscopic Separation of the Urogenital Sinus’, published in the Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques.

Researchers have discovered that aspirin prevents blood platelets from producing an enzyme that allows them to clump together and regular, long-term use of low-dose aspirin may reduce the risk of death from colon and rectal cancers. Tumour cells can attach to these clumps and spread (metastasize) throughout the body. The findings were recently published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

A targeted opioid that only treats diseased tissues and spares healthy tissues relieves pain from inflammatory bowel disease without causing side effects, according to researchers at New York University College of Dentistry and Queen's University in Ontario. The paper, ‘Agonist that activates the µ-opioid receptor in acidified microenvironments inhibits colitis pain without side effects’, published in the journal Gut, was conducted in mice with colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease marked by inflammation of the large intestine.

Lumendi has launched EZ Glide, a proprietary hydrophilic coating applied to the inner sheath of its DiLumen EIP, a double-balloon endoluminal device that aims to safely improve the navigation of the endoscope through the bowel, create a stabilising therapeutic zone inside the colon during endoluminal interventions, and help minimise potential mucosal injury.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new modelling approach, the pGENMi model, to better understand how tumours become aggressive. The researchers pooled the data from their own experiments as well as publicly available data to develop the model, which was based on a simpler 2018 model that investigated regulators of cancer drug resistance.

The latest outcomes from the Swedish Obese Subjects have reported that the risk from colorectal cancer does not rise after bariatric surgery, according to a study by researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. This finding is important for patients with obesity, and their healthcare professionals, when deciding upon such an operation, the authors noted.

A multi-disciplinary team at Washington University in St Louis has developed and tested an innovative imaging technique that is able to differentiate between rectal tissues with residual cancers and those without tumours after chemotherapy and radiation, which could one day help to avoid unnecessary surgeries in some patients who have achieved complete tumour destruction after chemoradiation.

Consumption of ultra-processed foods and drink could increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer, according to researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation. The findings, based on questionnaires about food behaviours completed by around 8,000 people in Spain, were reported in the paper, ‘Consumption of ultra-processed foods and drinks and colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer’, published in Clinical Nutrition.

A backlog of nearly half a million endoscopy procedures, essential for diagnosing gastrointestinal cancers and diseases, has built up during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of NHS England data led by University College London researchers. The outcomes were featured in the paper, ‘Predicting endoscopic activity recovery in England after COVID-19: a national analysis’, published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, show the number of endoscopies being performed in April 2020, the month following the first lockdown, fell by over 90%.

A systematic review comparing clinical outcome of haemorrhoidectomy and rubber band ligation in grade II–III haemorrhoids has reported that haemorrhoidectomy seems to provide better symptom control but results in more pain and complications. Moreover, the study researchers from The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, claim that because of the poor quality of the studies available they were unable to determine which procedure results in the best treatment for grade II–III haemorrhoids.

Colorectal cancer survivors who maintained a stable body weight but lost muscle and developed fatty deposits in their muscles faced a 40 percent higher risk of premature death than patients who avoided both health issues, according to a study by researchers from Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Researchers led by Harald zur Hausen from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have detected the pathogens in colorectal cancer patients in close proximity to tumours. The researchers show that the Bovine meat and milk factors (BMMFs) - novel infectious agents found in dairy products and bovine sera - trigger local chronic inflammation, which can cause mutations via activated oxygen molecules and thus promote cancer development in the long term.

CT colonography (CTC) with 10mm threshold most effectively targets advanced neoplasia (AN) preserving detection while decreasing unnecessary colonoscopies, compared with Multi-target stool-DNA (mt-sDNA) and faecal immunochemical tests (FIT).

Naturally occurring toxins in food and potentially harmful foodborne microbes can damage our intestines, leading to repeated minor injuries. In healthy people, such damage typically heals in a day or two, however, in people with Crohn's disease the wounds can fester causing abdominal pain, bleeding, diarrhoea and other unpleasant symptoms.

Cancers that are resistant to radiotherapy could be rendered susceptible through treatment with immunotherapy and manipulating bowel cancers based on their "immune landscape" could unlock new ways to treat resistant tumours.

A machine learning algorithm helps accurately differentiate benign and premalignant colorectal polyps on CT colonography scans, according to researchers from the University Hospital, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich Germany. The findings were reported in the paper, ‘Machine Learning–based Differentiation of Benign and Premalignant Colorectal Polyps Detected with CT Colonography in an Asymptomatic Screening Population: A Proof-of-Concept Study’, published in the journal Radiology.

Scientists from the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago have reported that a nanotherapy reduces intestinal inflammation and shrinks lesions in a rodent model of severe Crohn's disease. This approach could become an alternative to biologic antibody therapies that carry many side effects, including increased risk of certain cancers and might also prevent the need for surgery in the future.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin have reported that the genotoxin colibactin induces genetic changes that are characteristic of colorectal cancer cells and cause a transformed phenotype after only a few hours of infection. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Genomic aberrations after short-term exposure to colibactin-producing E. coli transform primary colon epithelial cells’, published in Nature Communications.

Washington University School of Medicine researchers have reported that a liquid biopsy examining blood or urine can help gauge the effectiveness of therapy for colorectal cancer (CRC) that has just begun to spread beyond the original tumour. Such a biopsy can detect lingering disease and could serve as a guide for deciding whether a patient should undergo further treatments due to some tumour cells evading an initial attempt to eradicate the cancer.

Scientists from Nanjing University and the University of Macau have devised a new approach to extend the survival of transplanted probiotics in vivo, enhancing the efficacy of cancer chemo-/immunotherapies in mice. The approach was outlined in the paper, ‘Smectite promotes probiotic biofilm formation in the gut for cancer immunotherapy’, published in Cell Reports.

Colorectal cancer screening rates jumped by more than 1,000 percent when researchers sent take-at-home tests to patients overdue for testing at a community health centre that predominantly serves ethnic minorities. Instead of the oft-standard text message that simply reminds a patient that they are overdue for screening, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania made it the default to send a take-at-home test to the patient's home unless they opted out via a text message prompt.

AbbVie has announced positive results from two Phase 3 induction studies, ADVANCE and MOTIVATE, showing both doses of risankizumab (600mg and 1200mg) met both primary endpoints of clinical remission and endoscopic response at week 12 in adult patients with moderate to severe Crohn's disease. The ADVANCE study enrolled patients who had an inadequate response or were intolerant to conventional and/or biologic therapy. The MOTIVATE study evaluated patients who had responded inadequately or were intolerant to biologic therapy.

Landos Biopharma has announced positive results from a first-in-patients 12-week Phase 2 proof-of-concept trial of BT-11, a novel, orally administered, gut-restricted Lanthionine Synthetase C-Like 2 (LANCL2) modulator in patients with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis (UC).

Researchers from the Department of Human Genetics at Michigan Medicine, and a team of collaborators have reported a method for screening so-called genetic variants of uncertain significance in the hopes of identifying those mutations that could cause colorectal cancer. The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Massively parallel functional testing of MSH2 missense variants conferring Lynch syndrome risk’, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics

A surgical procedure meant to counter ulcerative colitis, may trigger a second immune system attack, a study by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine has reported. Colon tissue damaged by the disease is routinely addressed with a "J-pouch" procedure wherein a pouch is surgically constructed from nearby, healthy small intestine tissue to replace the damaged section of the colon.

A Veterans Affairs study has reported  that delays in undergoing colonoscopy following an abnormal stool test increase the risk of a colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis and cancer-related death. In a retrospective study of more than 200,000 Veterans, the researchers found that patients who received colonoscopy more than 13 months after an abnormal stool blood test were up to 1.3 times more likely to have CRC, compared with those who had colonoscopy up to three months after the stool test.

Nagoya University researchers have revealed that colorectal cancer tissues contain at least two types of fibroblasts (a type of cells found in connective tissue), namely, cancer-promoting fibroblasts and cancer-restraining fibroblasts, and that the balance between them is largely involved in the progression of colorectal cancer.

There is substantial evidence that a daily aspirin can reduce risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) in adults up to age 70, but until now there was little evidence about whether older adults should start taking aspirin. Researchers led by Dr Andrew T Chan, a gastroenterologist and chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), have found that taking aspirin before the age of 70 lowers CRC risk.

Demand for cancer surgery is expected to increase from 9.1 million to 13.8 million procedures over the next twenty years, requiring a huge increase in the workforce including nearly 200,000 additional surgeons and 87,000 anaesthetists globally, according to two studies, published in The Lancet and The Lancet Oncology. The studies caution that as access to post-operative care is strongly linked to lower mortality, improving care systems worldwide must be a priority in order to reduce disproportionate number of deaths following complications.

The colons of African-Americans and people of European descent age differently, according to research that helps to explain racial disparities in colorectal cancer. Scientists led by UVA Health's Dr  Li Li, Graham Casey and Matt Devall of the Center for Public Health Genomics, found that one side of the colon ages biologically faster than the other in both African-Americans and people of European descent.

A faecal immunochemical test (FIT) can help identify who is at risk of developing colorectal cancer, aiding early diagnosis and potentially saving lives, according to a study led by the University of Exeter, and supported by the Peninsula and the Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon, and Gloucestershire Cancer Alliances, and by the Cancer Research UK CanTest Collaborative.

More than a third of eligible people miss timely screening tests for colorectal cancer and at least a quarter appear to miss timely screening tests for breast and cervical cancers, according to a researcher from the University of Alberta, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry in Alberta, Canada.

Hundreds of cancer patients have benefitted from using computer algorithms to manage their symptoms and improve their wellbeing in a unique UK trial. The early stage colorectal, breast or gynaecological cancer patients took part in the trial of the eRAPID system, developed by the University of Leeds, which allowed them to report online symptoms from home and receive instant advice on whether to self-manage or seek medical attention.

Researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute have developed a novel, patient-derived model of ulcerative colitis, which will help advance studies into new treatments for the chronic inflammatory bowel disease. The team used the model to identify a promising target that could be inhibited to slow disease progression. The outcomes from the model were reported in the paper, ‘Induced organoids derived from patients with ulcerative colitis recapitulate colitic reactivity’, published in Nature Communications.

A sizeable fraction of patients COVID-19 hospitalised with breathing problems also have diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, suggesting that when the virus does get involved in the gastrointestinal tract  (GI) tract it increases the severity of the disease.

Colorectal cancer cells enter into a sluggish, slow-dividing state to survive the harsh environment created by chemotherapy or other targeted agents, according to researchers from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at the University Health Network and the University of Toronto. Dr Catherine O'Brien and colleagues discovered that when under threat, all cancer cells rather than just a subset have the ability to transition into this protective state, where the cells ‘rest’ until the threat, or chemotherapy, is removed.

Apollo Endosurgery has gained FDA 510k clearance of the X-Tack Endoscopic HeliX Tacking System, a new, through-the-scope, suture-based device designed specifically for closing and healing defects in the lower gastrointestinal tract with additional applications in the upper gastrointestinal tract.