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Oxaliplatin added to adjuvant 5-fluorouracil (5FU) improves survival in stage III colon cancer patients in the general population – not only in randomised clinical trials (RCTs), according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
In order to determine the effects of combined therapy in stage III colon cancer patients in the general population, Hanna K. Sanoff, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Haematology and Oncology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and colleagues, gathered data from patients using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry linked to Medicare claims (SEER-Medicare), among other cancer registries.
All patients had stage III colon cancer, received chemotherapy within 120 days of surgery, and were age 75 years or younger.
Overall survival (OS) was then compared between patients treated with combined therapy and standard chemotherapy.
The researchers found that adding oxaliplatin to adjuvant therapies for stage III colon cancer in patients of the general cancer population was just as effective as in patients from RCTs.
The addition of oxaliplatin showed improved survival across various practice settings, including those with older and minority patients as well as patients with greater comorbidity.
“Physicians and patients should be reassured from our findings that oxaliplatin is associated with marginally but consistently superior survival for patients diagnosed before age 75 years in community settings,” wrote Sanoff et al.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
