Blood Biomarkers Linked to Oxidative Stress and Chronic Inflammation for Risk Assessment of Colorectal Neoplasia

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is currently the third most common malignancy in the world. The prognosis of CRC is directly related to the stage of the cancer at the time of diagnosis, and survival is significantly better when CRC is diagnosed at an early stage. Consequently, there is an urgent need for the discovery of non-invasive diagnostic markers that can reflect the early events linked to colorectal carcinogenesis. Clinical and experimental data indicate that chronic inflammation and oxidative stress are involved in the development of CRC. In this review, we evaluate risk prediction, the diagnostic and prognostic value of biomarkers related to oxidative stress, antioxidant status, oxidative DNA damage, and the inflammation process in CRC.