Translational Research In Colorectal Surgery

On 4th-6th March 2022, Malaysian Society of Colorectal Surgeons has organized Annual Scientific Meeting for Virtual Coloproctology 2022 campaign. A theme highlighted for this event was “Teamwork”.  In this video, Prof. Datuk Dr A Rahman shared about what is Translational Research (TR) and his thought on how it is relatable to Colorectal Cancer and surgery. He has point up few main keys about TR that specifically bring out on how the involvement of teamwork and multidisciplinary principle by research team for this study.  

Referring to Prof. Datuk Dr. A Rahman A views, it is more to make a discovery of laboratory research into clinical practice that give benefits of studies to human. Considering that colorectal cancer (CRC) is quite common nowadays. According to Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia it was top and second in males and females respectively in year of 2006. Above all, few remarkable translational research question for CRC used to investigate all the parameters and gain more valuable benefits for this studies 

3 forms of translational research

The purposes of following in this form of TR are to understand more about how CRC research based on health and disease conditions, build community-based awareness by making the population-based research accordingly to any suitable mechanisms. Additionally, by using tools from the population community research then it can transform into hypotheses simplified to basic research. 

How TR benefited to CRC?

It can be molecular profiling to identify novel targets for therapy where research has been done previously by resulting that a whole genome sequencing (WGS) can identify unique mutations in CRC patients. Besides that, risk stratification and prognostication can be biomarker as well for CRC, which can differentiate which are good and poor prognosis. Pharmacogenetics, likewise give response to chemotherapy treatment and what is the adverse effects. Monitor response at the molecular level using liquid biopsies where it is minimalist and repeatable procedure for early detection for disease. 

Population based Colorectal Cancer Screening of 2264 Participants in Malaysia

On close analysis, about 2264 participants have been tested for colorectal cancer and they are 79.6% response rate and among them about 13.1% cases positive through IFOBT test rate. However, around 50 participants that subjected to positive cases undergone with colonoscopy procedure. Therefore, 45 participants (36.0%) detected with polyps while 6 participants (0.3%) detected with CRC.

Types of resources needed for translational research 

For now, various samples for respective cancers have been collected from 2004 to 2021 and stored in largest biobank institute which is UMBI in South-East Asia

  • Cancer tissue
  • Adjacent normal tissue 
  • Whole blood
  • Clinical data and phenotype 

Edit by: Nuramira Salim, Mohd Arman Kamaruddin.