Gastric cancer patients with severe liver dysfunction secondary to hepatic metastases have limited treatment options. Most cytotoxic drugs have a narrow therapeutic index. Although both capecitabine and oxaliplatin have been well tolerated as single agents for patients with severe hepatic dysfunction, the combination of these drugs has not been investigated. We report here on a case of successf...

BACKGROUND There has been remarkable progress in systemic chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer due to the widespread use of irinotecan, oxaliplatin, anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibody, and anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibody. It is important to continue treatment with the optimal combination of these drugs and prolong progression-free survival (PFS) to improve ...

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common type of cancer. Although appropriate screening strategies, significant number of patients are still diagnosed at late stages of the disease. Despite all the advances, the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) remains an important clinical problem in the worldwide. mCRC patients live much longer with new combination of treatment agents. Cyto...

Oxaliplatin is a standard first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer. The objectives were to document the therapeutic management of oxaliplatin in South Africa, determine the incidence and severity of sensory neuropathy, and record the 2-year survival rate. Meccelox was a prospective, noncontrolled, open label, multicentre, observational survey of adult patients with stage IV metasta...

BACKGROUND Preoperative chemotherapy improves the outcome in patients with colorectal cancer with liver metastases. In the current study, the authors evaluated the activity of a conversion treatment with the combination of capecitabine plus oxaliplatin (XELOX) used in association with panitumumab in patients with unresectable, liver-only, metastatic colon cancer. METHODS Chemotherapy-naive pa...

PURPOSE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of bevacizumab when added to first-line oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy (either capecitabine plus oxaliplatin [XELOX] or fluorouracil/folinic acid plus oxaliplatin [FOLFOX-4]) in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC). PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients with MCRC were randomly assigned, in a 2 x 2 factorial design, to XELOX versus FOLFOX-4, and...

PURPOSE D-dimer, LDH and tumor markers are usually overexpressed in colorectal carcinomas (CRC). Our purpose was to assess the prognostic role of D-dimer, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), CEA, CA19-9 and CA72-4 in patients with metastatic CRC treated with XELOX chemotherapy. METHODS Thirty-eight CRC patients who had evidence of distant metastasis were enrolled in the study and blood samples were ...

This paper presents a summary of the evidence review group (ERG) report into the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of bevacizumab in combination with fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer based on the manufacturer's submission to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as part of the single technolog...

BACKGROUND The standard treatment in the metastatic colorectal cancer consists of 5-FU based infusional regimens. However, with oral fluoropyrimidines, equal tumor responses may be obtained. Capecitabine causes macrocytosis of the cells by inhibition of DNA synthesis. In this context, a relationship was found between mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and response to therapy in breast cancer patient...

Introduction The use of trastuzumab with a fluoropyrimidine and platinum compound is currently the standard first-line treatment of patients with metastatic HER2-positive gastric cancer, but it appears that serum levels of trastuzumab determine the clinical effectiveness of this treatment, affecting progression-free survival and overall survival. Case report We report the case of a patient with...