|
Strategic planning for patients who present with metastatic colorectal cancer
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chicago, IL
The current array of viable therapeutic options for metastatic colorectal cancer allows clinicians to strategically plan for the care of patients over a longer period than ever before. The availability of proven agents such as irinotecan, oxaliplatin, capecitabine, bevacizumab, and cetuximab has resulted in several new combination regimens that can be administered over the course of multiple lines of therapy, including, for the first time, a fourth line of therapy. For most patients with good performance status, a treatment continuum of cytotoxic and targeted agents over multiple therapeutic lines offers more than palliation, and it can prolong disease-free survival and overall survival.
| Commun Oncol 2006;3(suppl 2):18–25 | full text |  218 kb |