Palliative Therapie des kolorektalen Karzinoms

Background

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Every second patient dies of the disease. The introduction of new and effective chemotherapeutic substances and biologics during the past decade has significantly improved the systemic treatment of patients with metastatic CRC (mCRC). The introduction of the mutational status of the RAS oncogene as the first predictive marker into clinical care is an important step towards the personalization of the treatment in mCRC. The further increasing understanding of genetic dysregulations and signaling networks in metastatic colon cancer leads to modern therapy strategies. The development of novel targeted drugs enables us to selectively disrupt essential signaling networks of tumors.

Conclusion

The understanding of established and new treatment options for mCRC are increasing. Like in non-small cell lung cancer the trend in mCRC treatment moves to new treatment options for molecular subgroups (e.?g. for BRAF mutant, HER2 amplified/overexpressed or mismatch repair deficient tumors) that achieve very good treatment results.