Cancer medicine
RAS-Pathway Mutation Profiles and Clinical Outcomes Among Patients With Colorectal Cancer
By Kazemian E, Liu L, Waissengrin B and 12 others.
Abstract
Background
Somatic alterations in the RAS-RAF-MAPK and PI3K pathways are key in colorectal cancer (CRC), yet their distribution, co-occurrence patterns, and clinical significance remain incompletely defined. We characterized RAS/MAPK- and PI3K-pathway alterations in a large cohort and assessed their prognostic implications.
Methods
We analyzed whole-exome sequencing data from 1243 paired samples from patients with CRC. Somatic variants in KRAS, NRAS, HRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA were analyzed to quantify frequencies, codon-level distributions, and co-occurrence patterns. Descriptive somatic mutation status and demographic and clinical characteristics were evaluated using chi-square or Fisher exact tests, and associations with overall survival (OS) were evaluated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models.