Gastrointestinal Malignancies: New Innovative Diagnostics and Treatment summarizes new advantages in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies, thereby providing the most current and up-to-date knowledge on gastrointestinal malignancies to medical students, gastroenterologists, general surgeons, oncologic surgeons, and oncologists.This book will feature the progresses made on treatment and diagnosis of gastrointestinal malignancies in the last ten years and provides the most current diagnostic and therapeutic modalities to the readers. The book will be an excellent reference tool for physicians and surgeons working in the field of gastrointestinal malignancies.Editors of the book are experts from both the western and eastern parts of the world.

Significant changes in diet, environment, and population increase gastrointestinal cancer morbidity. A growing number of novel biomarkers and underlying mechanisms are being elucidated, some of which may even conflict with assumptions of past decades. Therefore, collecting recent findings on novel diagnostic/prognostic factors, biomarkers, and/or risk factors in gastrointestinal cancers is a prerequisite for a better understanding of the disease. Despite remarkable progressions in surgical treatments and chemotherapies, the prognosis of gastrointestinal cancer is far from satisfactory due to the high occurrence of drug resistance. Based on the identification of novel biomarkers as well as their underlying mechanisms, targeted drug development will provide significant complementary therapeutic effects to conventional chemoradiotherapies. High-throughput methods such as next-generation sequencing on RNA level and mass spectrometry on protein/lipid/metabolite level serve as efficient strategies for biomarker identification and drug development. This Research Topic aims at presenting recent advances on gastrointestinal cancer biomarkers and their underlying functional mechanisms, providing a better understanding of carcinogenesis, tumor progression, tumor relapse, as well as drug resistance. This will subsequently contribute to the development of novel therapeutic interventions targeting gastrointestinal cancers, thus improving patients' outcomes.

Primary malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract account for 23% of all invasive cancers and 24% of all the deaths in 1988. In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 227500 new cases of gastrointestinal malignancy di agnosed, with 122350 deaths. This includes 9800 new cases of carcinomas of the esopha gus, 24800 carcinomas of the stomach, 2500 new cases of malignant tumors of the small intestine, 105000 new cases of tumors of the large intestine, and 42000 new cases of car cinoma of the rectum, 14000 new cases involving the liver and biliary passages, 27000 new cases of carcinoma of the pancreas, and 2400 other unspecified digestive tract ma lignancies. This combined incidence is second only to the number of new cases of lung cancer. Bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract represents one of the earliest findings with re gard to malignancy of the gastrointestinal tract. In general, personal or family history of colon and rectal cancer, personal or family history of polyps in the colon or rectum, or inflammatory bowel disease are high risk factors with regard to tumors in these loca tions. Dietary behavior is also important in that a diet high in fat and/or low in fiber content may be a significant causative factor.

Gastrointestinal malignancies encompass a large number of tumor types, and collectively are responsible for a significant portion of new cancer cases annually. According to the IARC database, colorectal cancer alone is responsible for approximately 10% of new cases of cancer worldwide annually. There is significant heterogeneity across the various tumor types, with different pathways and factors involved in oncogenesis, as well as varying degrees of prognosis depending on the tumor type. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) contribute to a significant portion of the human transcriptome, and of particular interest are the micro-RNAs (miRNAs), long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), and circular ncRNAs (circRNAs). With the advent of next-generation sequencing and new technologies such a minimally invasive biopsy techniques, there is a growing body of evidence elucidating the role of ncRNAs in the progression of various form of gastrointestinal cancers. Furthermore, in addition to their relevance to cancer progression, these ncRNAs have important potential as biomarkers and prognostic markers for various GI cancers.

This book reviews current immunotherapeutic strategies for gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies, including immune composition, immune checkpoint inhibitors, cell therapy, and peptide vaccines used to protect against esophageal, gastric, hepato-biliary, pancreatic and colorectal cancers. It also discusses the current challenges of using immunotherapy for the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies. The book reviews highly sensitive and specific immunomarkers for the detection of GI malignancies, and examines therapeutic vaccines and the major cytokines involved in GI immunotherapy, as well as their basic biology and clinical applications. In closing, the book explores various aspects of computational biology for the detection and treatment of GI malignancies.

Gastrointestinal cancers are among the most common cancer types, based on the Cancer Genome Atlas. GI cancers are within the most frequent malignancy, with almost 150.000 new cases in 2020. On one hand a big number of researches are focused on the diagnosis, new diagnostic approaches in upper and lower gastrointestinal tract cancers. On the other hand in the last 10 years several papers had been published about the possible therapeutic targets, pointing to precision and personalized medicine.

This collection of chapters describes in detail the latest insights into the evaluation of resectability and neoadjuvant therapy to pancreaticoduodenectomy and distal pancreatectomy for pancreatic cancer. Shedding light on immunotherapy and gene therapy, this volume comprehensively covers treatments and procedures for the disease, allowing surgeons and trainees to gain an overview and explore innovative treatments. It also provides information on various cases using tools such as endoscopic ultrasound, MDCT, PET for diagnosis and laparoscopy and robotic resection methods. Edited and authored by pioneering professionals, Diagnosis and Treatment for Pancreatic Cancer is a valuable resource for gastroenterologists, medical oncologists, surgical oncologist and general surgeons interested in treatment of pancreatic cancer care.