[Adjuvant therapy in colorectal carcinoma]

In Western industrialized countries colorectal adenocarcinoma is the second most common solid malignant tumor. Despite radical surgery in 75-80% of all cases, about 50% of the patients with colorectal carcinoma die of this tumor. The essential advances of recent years are reduction of the surgical complication rate and of postoperative mortality. Recent studies show that radiotherapy for rectum carcinoma and chemotherapy (5-fluorouracil in combination with levamisole) for colon carcinoma can be significantly helpful as an additional measure in certain subgroups. However, such so-called multimodality treatment concepts need adequate equipment and experience and should only be implemented, whenever possible, in controlled clinical trials.