Recent Therapeutic Strategies for the Treatment of Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is the most common cause of death and ranks second after lung cancer among the different cancer-related deaths. The treatment of colon cancer depends on many factors, including the nature of colon cancer (sporadic or hereditary), molecular factors, age, and stages of colon cancer. The current treatment approaches involve surgery/polypectomy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, combination therapy, and immunotherapy, while advanced methods include gene therapy, cellular therapy, and targeted immunotherapy with concern to colon cancer, which is in a developing phase. However, none of the treatment options is devoid of side effects, and each of the therapeutics has drawbacks such as relapse of the tumor, lack of specificity in the targets, and resistance of the anticancer drugs. Therefore, advancement in the treatment approaches for colon cancer is highly needed. Though up to the next level, scientific technology is continuously working to develop better treatment for colon cancer. The advanced approaches focus on the specificity of the targets which can differentiate between cancerous cells and normal cells, delivery of the therapeutic agents by utilizing nanoparticles, viruses, and different types of encapsulation of drug molecules, while immunotherapeutic approaches involve monoclonal antibodies, cytokine treatment, cancer vaccine, and cellular therapies. A cancer vaccine is a new highlighting approach toward colon cancer in which common molecular defects of the cancerous cells are targeted. This chapter focuses on the different types of colon cancer, molecular factors, diagnostic targets, and treatment strategies for colon cancer.