Post-adjuvant chemotherapy in ctDNA-positive patients with resected colorectal cancer: a randomized phase 3 trial

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality, with an estimated 154,270 new cases expected in the U.S. in 2025.
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Adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) is recommended for high-risk stage II and stage III CRC patients following surgical resection.
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ctDNA serves as a minimally invasive biomarker for monitoring disease recurrence and has shown strong prognostic value in CRC.
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The ALTAIR trial evaluates the efficacy of FTD/TPI in ctDNA-positive CRC patients post-surgery, aiming to improve outcomes.
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In the ALTAIR trial, 243 ctDNA-positive patients were randomized to receive either FTD/TPI or placebo, with a median follow-up of 23.29 months.

Nature Medicine

by Hideaki Bando, Jun Watanabe, Yusuke Takahashi, Masahito Kotaka, Nobuhisa Matsuhashi, Eiji Oki, Yoshito Komatsu, Manabu Shiozawa, Keiji Hirata, Yuji Miyamoto, Masanobu Takahashi, Kentaro Yamazaki, Dai Manaka, Akiyoshi Kanazawa, Yi-Hsin Liang, Kun-Huei Yeh, Yuko Watsuji, Yuko Yamamoto, Makoto Fukui, Shruti Sharma, Vasily N. Aushev, Adham Jurdi, Matthew Rabinowitz, Minetta C. Liu, Alexey Aleshin, Ichiro Takemasa, Daisuke Kotani, Akihiro Sato, Toshihiro Misumi, Yoshiaki Nakamura, Qian Shi, Hiroya Taniguchi, Takayuki Yoshino, Takeshi Kato
June 8, 2026

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