Press Release: Different Methods of Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colorectal Cancer Have Similar Outcomes

Extract

Colorectal cancer patients who receive fluorouracil-based adjuvant chemotherapy have similar survival rates whether the chemotherapy is delivered systemically (by vein or by mouth), regionally (to a specific area of the body), or by a combined regimen of both methods, according to a new study, which appears in the May 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Each year, about one million people worldwide are diagnosed with colorectal cancer and about half that number dies from the disease. After colon tumors are removed surgically, many patients are treated with fluorouracil-based adjuvant chemotherapy. Whether the chemotherapy should be delivered via the systemic or regional methods, however, has been controversial.

To test the effectiveness of both methods of chemotherapy, Roberto Labianca, M.D., of the Ospedali Riuniti in Bergamo, Italy, and colleagues conducted a randomized clinical trial of 1084 patients with colon carcinoma in Dukes’ stage B or C who were recruited between 1992 and 1998. After surgery, the patients received the regional regimen, the systemic regimen, or regional followed by systemic chemotherapy.