Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common cancer and cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Although, the step-wise genetic alteration in the course of adenoma-carcinoma progression is well-understood, the mechanism of the tumour initiation and promotion is yet to be elucidated. Murine studies indicate that intestinal tumour originates from normal intestinal stem cells which acquire the oncogenic hits. It is plausible to consider the abnormality of the stem cell compartment as the earliest potentially detectable phenotypic change in the course of intestinal tumourigenesis. Hereby, it is hypothesised that imaging of the abnormal state of the intestinal stem cell compartment could potentially be integrated in CRC screening strategy.
Keywords: Lgr5; Molecular imaging; colorectal cancer; early detection; intestinal stem cell.