Medicine› Oncology› Colorectal Cancer Treatments and Studies

Colorectal cancer — Six-miRNA tissue profile as a chemotherapy-response biomarker

Submitted 2026-10-22

Field: Medicine › OncologyType: Couldn't replicate a published resultArea: colorectal cancerTarget: Six-miRNA tissue profile as a chemotherapy-response biomarkerStage: replication

Hypothesis

A six-microRNA profile, developed earlier from tumour tissue, would add predictive value over clinical parameters for who benefits from first-line chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer.

What failed

In a prospective cohort of 132 patients (81 tissue biopsies, 93 serum samples), the tissue profile predicted progression (AUC 0.85) and response (AUC 0.70) but did not beat clinical parameters alone (P = .14 and P = .27). Two serum miRNAs improved prediction (AUC 0.74), but not enough for treatment decisions.

Broken assumption

A tissue miRNA signature derived in one set of patients carries predictive information beyond routine clinical variables in a new cohort.

Why

The abstract does not give a mechanism; it concludes the profile's added value could not be validated and that the serum improvement was too small to be clinically useful.

From the published paper: Poel et al. Cancer Medicine, 2020. ↗CC BY

Research ideas from this failure

Unvetted lead — read the papers

New hypotheses this failure suggests, each with a crucial experiment, a rival explanation of the original result, and the papers it rests on. Written by AI from paper titles and abstracts found on OpenAlex (and Europe PMC, for life and health sciences).

Related failures (1)

Matched on shared genes, mechanisms and ways of failing as well as wording. Each shows why it matched — treat these as leads rather than verdicts.

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Why it matched: same research area

Links in published research

Where this experiment's genes are known to matter outside its own research area, and the papers behind those links. Sources: Open Targets Platform and Europe PMC.