Recent advances is surgical adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer

To evaluate the significance of surgical adjuvant chemotherapy, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of adjuvant chemotherapy after curative resection for colorectal cancer were reviewed. Several multi-drug systemic chemotherapies (MOF, MMC/FT, 5-FU, UFT p.o.) were useful as adjuvant treatment to improve survival or disease-free survival of patients with colorectal cancer. Moreover, a worldwide meta-analysis suggested that continuous intraportal 5-FU infusion improves survival. Combination chemotherapy trials utilizing 5-FU and levamisol (LEV) demonstrated a survival advantage in patients with high risk colon cancer. Recently, many RCTs have substantiated the benefits of treatment with 5-FU/Leucovorin (LV) and this treatment is widely used as adjuvant treatment for the patients with Dukes C resected colon cancer in Europe and the U.S.A. Now, with the increasing use of oral chemotherapy drugs, new trials comparing oral UFT/LV with intravenous 5-FU/LV are being implemented to investigate these drugs in terms of QOL, toxicity and cost. Furthermore, the new drug irinotecan (CPT-11) is now under investigation to see if it brings added efficacy to 5-FU/LV. In Japan, two major groups (N-SAS-CC and TAC-CR) are comparing surgery alone and UFT alone in patients with Dukes C colon and rectal cancer. From these results, surgical adjuvant chemotherapy seems to be effective in the treatment of patients with high risk colon cancer and those with rectal cancer.