DIOPTRA EARLY DYNAMIC SCREENING FOR COLORECTAL CANCER VIA NOVEL PROTEIN BIOMARKERS REFLECTING BIOLOGICAL INITIATION MECHANISMS

Summary

DIOPTRA inspires to address the aforementioned issues by incorporating new technologies for Colorectal Cancer (CRC) risk assessment, screening and progression, while providing robust evidence-based indications of CUP relationships to CRC. We aim to build a strong evidence base toward a unified holistic protocol for primary CRC screening, applicable both to undiagnosed cancer patients (via scheduled screening recommendations) and CUP patients corresponding to the CRC phenotype. Toward this goal, we will incorporate lifestyle and environmental factors and gauge the predictive power of investigated biomarkers and gene-expression profiling, seeking to unveil molecular mechanisms of CRC development and CUP incidence. In this context, we will also examine the efficacy of network modeling and AI-based DSS for early primary CRC identification, training a set of models on large volumes of primary CRC data including in-situ and metastatic carcinomas, using the latter as a knowledge base for CUP analysis.

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Web resources:	https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101096649
Start date:	01-01-2023
End date:	31-12-2026
Total budget - Public funding:	13 647 600,80 Euro - 13 646 550,00 Euro

Cordis data

Original description

DIOPTRA aims to introduce a front-line screening tool that will consider risk factors and protein biomarkers for pinpointing individuals at a high risk for colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence. Tissue & blood samples will be examined towards a discriminative set of prognostic proteins that are detectable via standard bloodwork and can indicate a need for further evaluation (i.e. colonoscopy). Other data (e.g. medical, behavioural) will also be considered as potential risk factors. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be leveraged for assessing prognostic power, while personalised behavioural change will be promoted based on modifiable risk factors. Given the low citizen participation on CRC screening across EU, DIOPTRA seeks to broaden the evaluated population, boosting participation rates and bypassing age screening thresholds. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on ‘Prevention, including Screening’.