A study looking at cancer cells in the bloodstream of people with advanced bowel cancer

This was a study to see how practical it would be to collect and test bowel cancer cells from the bloodstream. The researchers hoped that in future, this might help to predict how people will respond to chemotherapy.

Doctors usually treat bowel cancer that has spread (metastasised) with chemotherapy. This can help to control the cancer, and improve quality of life for many people with the disease. But this treatment does not always help. Doctors don’t want to put people through long courses of treatment and side effects if it won’t help them. But they can’t always tell in advance how well chemotherapy is going to work.  

We know from research that certain gene characteristics can help to show how people will respond to chemotherapy.  Where possible, doctors gather this information by taking and studying a sample of cancer tissue (a biopsy). But they would prefer to use a quick and simple blood test to get this information. The aim of this study was to see if it was practical to find bowel cancer cells in a patient’s bloodstream. And if researchers could test these cells for this information.