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The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer
Colorectal Cancer: September 1995
Last modified on:
Tuesday, April 20, 1999 13:03:10
Copyright © 1994-2008, Information Ventures, Inc.
Hybrid Chemotherapy - Colorectal cancer is very common, and curable at early stages,
but when advanced, it is difficult to treat. Although new drugs are constantly being tried, the astonishing fact is that the
standard chemotherapy agent remains 5-fluorouracil (FU), a drug introduced more than 35 years ago. Its decades-long retention is
not a reflection of high efficacy. Response rates are in fact low, generally 10-15%, although modulation of the drug by
combination with methotrexate or leukovorin, can raise this rate to 20-30%. A group of clinicians from the University of Genoa,
Italy, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, reported in the September, 1995 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, promising results of
a hybrid chemotherapy regimen. This comprised two biweekly cycles of 5-FU modulated by methotrexate pretreatment,
alternating with a 3-week continuous infusion of 5-FU modulated by low-dose weekly leukovorin. Thirty-three patients showed a
very good 48% response rate with 9.5 and 20.2 months progression-free and overall survival. The continuous infusion phase was the
stage of most toxicity.
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