Postoperative circulating tumor DNA detection predicts recurrence and guides adjuvant chemotherapy duration in high-risk stage III colorectal cancer

Figure 3 Time to recurrence analysis by circulating tumor DNA status and chemotherapy duration. Box plots showing the distribution of time to recurrence. A: Comparison between circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-positive (n = 10) and ctDNA-negative (n = 5) patients. ctDNA-positive patients had significantly shorter median time to recurrence (11.0 months vs 18.0 months, P = 0.041, Mann-Whitney U test); B: Comparison between 3-month (n = 6) and 6-month (n = 4) chemotherapy durations in ctDNA-positive patients. No significant difference was observed (9.5 months vs 14.0 months, P = 0.167). Box plots display the median (horizontal line), mean (diamond), interquartile range (box), and range (whiskers). ctDNA: Circulating tumor DNA; NS: Not significant.