Study: Promising Approach for Locally Advanced Colorectal Cancer

Chemotherapy prior to radiation and surgery appears to lead to symptomatic relief and more successful outcomes for patients with locally advanced colorectal cancer, according to a report in the British Journal of Cancer.

Researchers from Royal Marsden Hospital said that between January 1999 and August 2001, 36 patients with a median age of 63 found to have locally advanced disease took part in a study in which they were treated for 12 weeks with the chemotherapy drug 5-FU and the antibiotic mitomycin.

Starting in week 13, the chemotherapy dose was cut back and pelvic radiation was begun.

The researchers reported that following this treatment, colon cancer regression had occurred in 80 percent of the patients and only one patients still had an inoperable tumor.

In addition, they reported that two-thirds of the patients had a symptomatic response including improvement in diarrhea/constipation (59 percent), reduced rectal bleeding (60 percent) and diminished pelvic pain (78 percent).

Surgery then took place six weeks after the chemoradiation.

"Neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy as a prelude to synchronous chemoradiation can be administered with negligible risk of disease progression and produces considerable symptomatic response with associated tumor regression," the researchers concluded.

Other Sources: British Journal of Cancer