Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2026; 18(8): 120332
Published online Aug 15, 2026. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.120332
Published online Aug 15, 2026. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.120332
Liquid biopsies in colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis
Xiao-Zhe Bai, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Xing’an League People’s Hospital, Ulanhot 137400, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Xiao-Zhe Bai, Department of General Surgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
Sa-Chu La Bao, Zhen-Ni Yang, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Xing’an League People’s Hospital, Ulanhot 137400, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Xu-Qian Zhang, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation 731 Hospital, Beijing 100074, China
Co-first authors: Xiao-Zhe Bai and Sa-Chu La Bao.
Co-corresponding authors: Xu-Qian Zhang and Zhen-Ni Yang.
Author contributions: Yang ZN conceptualized the article and contributed to funding acquisition; Bai XZ and Zhang XQ contributed to the literature search and writing of the original draft; Bao SCL contributed to the manuscript revision; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript; Bai XZ and Bao SCL contributed equally to this manuscript and are co-first authors; Yang ZN and Zhang XQ contributed equally to this manuscript and are co-corresponding authors.
AI contribution statement: I only used ChatGPT for language polishing, expression revision and sentence restructuring. All manuscript content was originally written and independently revised by the authors, with no AI-generated academic content. As a review article, this work does not involve study design, experiments, data analysis or result interpretation, and contains no images. AI was only used for linguistic optimization and did not participate in content creation.
Supported by the Science and Technology Program of the Joint Fund of Scientific Research for the Public Hospitals of Inner Mongolia Academy of Medical Sciences, No. 2023GLLH0449; and the Xing’an League Science and Technology Plan Project, No. MBJH2024001.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Zhen-Ni Yang, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Gastro
Received: February 24, 2026
Revised: March 31, 2026
Accepted: June 2, 2026
Published online: August 15, 2026
Processing time: 164 Days and 3.2 Hours
Revised: March 31, 2026
Accepted: June 2, 2026
Published online: August 15, 2026
Processing time: 164 Days and 3.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Liquid biopsy is revolutionizing colorectal cancer management by enabling noninvasive, real-time tumor profiling through analysis of circulating biomarkers. Emerging evidence supports the clinical utility of multi-analyte panels in