The role of fungi in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer

ABSTRACT

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prevalent tumour with high morbidity rates worldwide, and its incidence among younger populations is rising. Early diagnosis of CRC can help control the associated mortality. Fungi are common microorganisms in nature. Recent studies have shown that fungi may have a similar association with tumours as bacteria do. As an increasing number of tumour-associated fungi are discovered, this provides new ideas for the diagnosis and prognosis of tumours. The relationship between fungi and colorectal tumours has also been recently identified by scientists. Therefore, this paper describes the limitations and prospects of the application of fungi in diagnosing CRC and predicting CRC prognosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Fungi
• colorectal neoplasms
• diagnosis
• differentia
• biomarkers
• microbiota

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Author contributions

Xu-Huan Li and Ming-Ming Luo: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Visualisation, Writing-Original Draft, and Review & Editing. Zu-Xiu Wang: Visualisation, Review, and Editing. Qi Wang and Bin Xu: Conceptualisation, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Key Project of Science and Technology Innovation of the Health Commission of Jiangxi Province (2023ZD005).