[Current status of chemotherapy of gastric and colorectal cancer]

The group of gastric and colorectal carcinomas has the highest cancer mortality in Western Germany. The possibilities of treatment with chemotherapy only have palliative character. 5-Fluourouracil is the therapeutic of choice on the metastasized colorectal cancer. However, a prolongation of survival time by treatment of the colorectal tumor could neither be recorded in applying 5-Fluorouracil as a single agent, nor through combination chemotherapy. The treatment of the metastasized gastric carcinoma with combinations consisting of the 5-Fluorouracil and Adriamycin could be of future value. Also effective with this tumour as a palliative measure is the combined treatment with 5-Fluorouracil and irradiation. The advantage of an adjuvant therapy of a chemotherapeutical, radiological or immunological kind could so far not be proved.