Study: Oxaliplatin Significantly More Effective for Advanced Colorectal Cancer

Researchers reported that the chemotherapy drug, oxaliplatin, developed two decades ago in France but never marketed in the United States, appears to be significantly more effective than currently used drug combinations in treating patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

Results of a multicenter trial involving 795 patients at 146 hospitals in the United States and Canada were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

Dr. Richard M. Goldberg of the Mayo Clinic said the data showed that in combination with two other drugs, oxaliplatin -- which has an atom of platinum at the center of the drug molecule which poisons cancer cells -- resulted in an average time to colorectal tumor progression of 8.8 months.

For patients in the control group, who received the most widely used current treatment, the time to progression was 6.9 months.

"Although one could quibble about the magnitude of those differences, I don't think one could quibble that oxaliplatin is an exceedingly useful drug in the treatment of colon cancer and one that I think all patients in the U.S. deserve to have available to them," Goldberg said.

"The data have the potential to change the stardard of practive for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer in the United States," he added.

Other sources: ASCO