Challenges and proposed solutions to the adoption of cell free DNA in screening, detecting and prognosticating colorectal cancer

Figure 3 The challenges of using circulating tumour DNA for the detection and prognostication of colorectal cancer and proposed solutions. Figure was created with Biorender.com. Challenges preventing the adoption of cell free DNA to detect and prognosticate colorectal cancer include the exorbitant cost of deep sequencing which makes it infeasible for population-wide screening, inefficient circulating tumour DNA extraction from plasma or non-plasma sources, and the lack of technologies with sufficient sequencing depth. Potential solutions that can be explored are to channel more resources into the development of sequencing technologies with sufficient depth and sensitivity, and to formulate an effective and standardized method of circulating tumour DNA extraction. CRC: Colorectal cancer; ctDNA: Circulating tumour DNA.