Stage III colon cancer findings revealed

A study presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) has revealed that Eloxatin-based chemotherapy regimin FOLFOX4 can improve the overall survival of stage III colon cancer patients.

This is compared to the standard chemotherapy (5-FU/LV), which has been used for a number of years.

Survival analysis of the Mosaic study, which investigated 148 centres in 20 countries, was presented and it showed that stage III colon cancer patients were 20 per cent less likely to die if treated with Eloxatin rather than 5-FU/LV alone after surgery.

Professor Amery de Gramont, principal investigator from oncology department at Hospital Saint Antoine in Paris, said: “For decades, the standard care for colon cancer patients has been 5-FU/LV. This is the first time that the addition of another agent, Eloxatin, to standard 5-FU/LV-based chemotherapy has shown a significant survival advantage in the adjuvant treatment of stage III colon cancer patients.”

“We have looked forward to these results since we presented the primary analysis from this study at Asco in 2003 and subsequently published it in the New England Journal of Medicine,” she added.

Those aged 50 or over are most at risk of developing colon cancer, according to a number of cancer groups.