More Evidence for Oxaliplatin as Colon Cancer Chemotherapy

In continuation of my update on Oxaliplatin 

Adding oxaliplatin to a standard chemotherapy regimen boosts survival rates for patients with advanced colon cancer, according to a new study that bolsters previous research on the drug by looking at a broader group of patients.

In past studies, oxaliplatin, as an adjuvant to the established treatment of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), improved survival by up to 23 percent. But the new study looked at a different group of colon cancer patients, who were older, sicker, more racially diverse and had never participated in a controlled clinical study.

To determine whether oxaliplatin would show a similar benefit among a "real-world" population of patients, the authors sifted through five cancer registries containing survival information on more than 4,000 people with stage 3 colon cancer. All were younger than 75, and all had begun chemotherapy -- either a standard regimen or in combination with oxaliplatin -- within four months of having surgery between 2004 and 2009.

Researchers lead by Dr.Hanna K. Sanoff compared their survival rates with those of nearly 8,300 patients who had participated in one of five different clinical trials using oxaliplatin.

The addition of oxaliplatin to standard chemotherapy protocols was found to be just as effective in prolonging survival among the community-based set of patients - including the elderly, minorities and those with additional complicating health issues  who were not enrolled in studies.

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