[Recent advances is surgical adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer]

To evaluate the significance of surgical adjuvant chemotherapy, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of adjuvant chemotherapy after curative resection for colorectal cancer were reviewed. Several multi-drug systemic chemotherapies (MOF, MMC/FT, 5-FU, UFT p.o.) were useful as adjuvant treatment to improve survival or disease-free survival of patients with colorectal cancer. Moreover, a worldwide meta-analysis suggested that continuous intraportal 5-FU infusion improves survival. Combination chemotherapy trials utilizing 5-FU and levamisol (LEV) demonstrated a survival advantage in patients with high risk colon cancer. Recently, many RCTs have substantiated the benefits of treatment with 5-FU/Leucovorin (LV) and this treatment is widely used as adjuvant treatment for the patients with Dukes C resected colon cancer in Europe and the U.S.A. Now, with the increasing use of oral chemotherapy drugs, new trials comparing oral UFT/LV with intravenous 5-FU/LV are being implemented to investigate these drugs in terms of QOL, toxicity and cost. Furthermore, the new drug irinotecan (CPT-11) is now under investigation to see if it brings added efficacy to 5-FU/LV. In Japan, two major groups (N-SAS-CC and TAC-CR) are comparing surgery alone and UFT alone in patients with Dukes C colon and rectal cancer. From these results, surgical adjuvant chemotherapy seems to be effective in the treatment of patients with high risk colon cancer and those with rectal cancer.