Our study points out the promising role of homologous recombination repair (HRR) pathway gene mutations, specifically the co-occurrence of ATM with CDK12, PTEN or ATR in identifying hypermutated MSS CRC; a finding we confirmed is observable in the larger TCGA-COAD/READ Stage I/IIIA dataset (Supplementary Figure S2). This evidence concerns the gene ATM and colorectal carcinoma.