Transcriptomics changes in liver metastatic biopsies of colorectal carcinoma between pre-treated and acquired resistance to Cetuximab [miRNA]

Two patients who were newly diagnosed and pathologically confirmed metastatic colorectal cancer were screened for eligibility between August 2011 and December 2013 in Affiliated Hospital, Academy of Military Medical Sciences. They were treated with Cetuximab in combination with FOLFOX regimen and obtained continuous partial responses in more than six months. CT scans of liver lesions were performed every two to eight weeks. The four biopsies were evaluated by two pathologists and were confirmed that the tumor purities were greater than 50%. Each biopsy was subjected to high-throughput RNA and small RNA sequencing to obtain expression profiles of genes and miRNAs. Overall design: The small RNA profiling of 4 liver metastatic biopsies of colorectal carcinoma from 2 patients with matched-pairs design of pre-treated and acquired resistance to Cetuximab.