Personalized treatment for colorectal cancer: novel developments and putative therapeutic strategies.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer diagnosed worldwide and continues to be a major healthcare concern. Molecular heterogeneity of CRC is believed to be one of the main factors responsible for the considerable variability in treatment response. With the recent development of powerful genomic technologies, novel insights in tumor biology of CRC have now been provided, facilitating the recognition of new molecular subtypes with prognostic and predictive implications.

Telomere elongation and clinical response to androgen treatment in a patient with aplastic anemia and a heterozygous hTERT gene mutation.

Telomere length (TL) both reflects and limits the replicative life span of normal somatic cells. As a consequence, critically shortened telomeres are associated with a variety of disease states. Telomere attrition can be counteracted by a nucleoprotein complex containing telomerase.