Metastatic Colon Cancer

“Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cause of cancer and the second most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Despite increasing survival rates, metastatic CRC (mCRC) remains a lethal disease with a 5-year survival rate of approximately 14%. As the current therapeutic strategies are limited to a proportion of patients with certain types of CRC…” (1)

How common is colorectal cancer?

The American Cancer Society’s estimates for the number of colorectal cancers in the United States for 2025 are:

  • About 107,320 new cases of colon cancer (54,510 in men and 52,810 in women)

  • About 46,950 new cases of rectal cancer (27,950 in men and 19,000 in women)

The rate of people being diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer each year has dropped overall since the mid-1980s, mainly because more people are getting screened and changing their lifestyle-related risk factors. From 2012 to 2021, incidence rates dropped by about 1% each year. But this downward trend is mostly in older adults. In people younger than 50 years of age, rates have increased by 2.4% per year from 2012 to 2021.

Lifetime risk of colorectal cancer

Overall, the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer is about 1 in 24 for men and 1 in 26 for women. However, each person’s risk might be higher or lower than this, depending on their risk factors for colorectal cancer.

Deaths from colorectal cancer

In the United States, colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and the fourth leading cause in women, but it’s the second most common cause of cancer deaths when numbers for men and women are combined. It’s expected to cause about 52,900 deaths during 2025.

Pie chart depicting colon cancer staging distribution: 32.8% localized in green, 38.7% regional in blue, 22.1% distant in red, and 6.3% unknown in orange, with legend on the right.

Colon Cancer Statistics : (Left) A distribution of metastatic status at time of colon cancer diagnosis from 2017 to 2021 (Right) 5-Year survival statistics based on metastatic staging at colon cancer diagnosis

Bar chart showing 5-year relative patient survival rates by metastatic staging of colon cancer at diagnosis. Categories: Overall (64.4%), Localized (88.5%), Regional (72.2%), Distant (16.3%), Unknown (47.6%). Localized stage has the highest survival rate, while Distant has the lowest.

Certainly the numbers demonstrate that Colon Cancer, especially Metastatic Colon Cancer, is an underserved medical condition in need of new and innovative therapeutic solutions such as PTM-001-ADC.

However, there is also a personal reason behind PTM-001-ADC. PTM Co-founder and VP of Research, Tony Liang is a patient with Metastatic Colon Cancer.