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<article xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/1.1/xsd/JATS-journalpublishing1-mathml3.xsd" article-type="research-article" dtd-version="1.1" lang="en"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">isrdo-SRJBL</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="pmc">isrdo-SRJBL</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">isrdo-SRJBL</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Scientific Research Journal of  Biology and Life Science</journal-title><abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher" pub-type="epub">SRJBL</abbrev-journal-title></journal-title-group><issn>2584-0606</issn><publisher><publisher-name>ISRDO</publisher-name><publisher-loc>Gujarat,India</publisher-loc></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">M-10364</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="doi"/><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="categories"><subject>Pathology</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Molecular Profiling of Isolated Tumour Cells in Colorectal Cancer: Prognostic and Predictive Value</article-title></title-group><contrib-group content-type="authors"><contrib id="631" contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><name><given-names>Alejandro Alzate</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1">1</xref><aff id="aff-1"><label>0</label><institution>University of the Valley, Cali</institution><country>Colombia</country></aff></contrib></contrib-group><contrib-group content-type="editors"><contrib contrib-type="editor"/></contrib-group><pub-date pub-type="epub" data-type="pub" iso-8601-date="2025-09-29"><day>29</day><month>09</month><year iso-8601-date="2">2025</year></pub-date><volume>3</volume><elocation-id>V3-I1-2025</elocation-id><history><date date-type="received" iso-8601-date="2025-09-20"><day>20</day><month>09</month><year iso-8601-date="2025">2025</year></date><date date-type="revised" iso-8601-date="2025-09-22"><day>22</day><month>09</month><year iso-8601-date="2025"/></date><date date-type="accepted" iso-8601-date="2025-09-22"><day>22</day><month>09</month><year iso-8601-date="2025"/></date></history><permissions><copyright-statement>&#xA9;2025 Alejandro Alzate Year Corresponding Author</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2025</copyright-year><copyright-holder>Alejandro Alzate</copyright-holder><license href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><license-p>This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (ISRDO) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</ext-link></license-p></license></permissions><self-uri href="https://isrdo.org/journal/SRJBL/currentissue/molecular-profiling-of-isolated-tumour-cells-in-colorectal-cancer-prognostic-and-predictive-value"/><abstract><p>Colorectal cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality worldwide, and accurate staging is critical for guiding treatment decisions. Lymph node involvement serves as one of the most decisive prognostic indicators, distinguishing stage II from stage III disease and influencing the use of adjuvant chemotherapy. Within this framework, the classification of metastatic deposits in lymph nodes has been refined into macrometastases, micrometastases, and isolated tumour cells (ITCs). While macrometastases and micrometastases have well-established clinical implications, the biological and prognostic relevance of ITCs remains an area of uncertainty. Conventional histopathological examination and immunohistochemistry have been unable to consistently demonstrate that ITCs influence survival or recurrence in colorectal cancer. However, molecular profiling technologies, including genomic sequencing, transcriptomic analysis, epigenetic studies, and single-cell approaches, offer a new opportunity to evaluate whether ITCs are biologically inert or represent seeds of metastatic potential. This paper provides a comprehensive literature-based review of ITCs in colorectal cancer, with particular emphasis on the application of molecular profiling techniques to clarify their prognostic and predictive significance. The discussion extends to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital pathology, and liquid biopsy, which may integrate with ITC profiling in the future. Finally, challenges, limitations, and future research directions are outlined. Molecularly characterizing ITCs may transform their current ambiguous clinical status into a defined biomarker guiding staging, treatment, and surveillance in colorectal cancer.</p></abstract><kwd-group kwd-group-type="author"><kwd>Colorectal cancer</kwd><kwd> isolated tumour cells</kwd><kwd> micrometastases</kwd><kwd> lymph node staging</kwd><kwd> molecular profiling</kwd><kwd> genomic alterations</kwd><kwd> transcriptomics</kwd><kwd> epigenetics</kwd><kwd> single-cell sequencing</kwd></kwd-group><funding-group><funding-statement>No specific grants from any funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors were received for this research, authorship, or publication.</funding-statement></funding-group></article-meta></front><back><sec sec-type="data-availability"><title>Data Availability</title><p>Not applicable.</p></sec><sec sec-type="COI-statement"><title>Conflicts of Interest</title><p>The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this study.</p></sec><sec sec-type="author-contributions"><title>Authors&#x2019; Contributions</title><p>The author alone is responsible for the study's conception, design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and manuscript preparation.</p></sec><sec sec-type="funding-statement"><title>Funding Statement</title><p>No specific grants from any funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors were received for this research, authorship, or publication.</p></sec><sec sec-type="software-information"><title>software-information</title><p>Not applicable.</p></sec><ack><title>Acknowledgments</title><p>I express my gratitude to those who provided expertise and assistance throughout this study and manuscript preparation. Special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable feedback.</p></ack><ref-list content-type="authoryear"><ref id="1"><label>1</label><element-citation publication-type="journal"><p>-</p></element-citation></ref></ref-list></back></article>
