[Adjuvant systemic chemotherapy in colon cancer]

The prognosis for patients with cancer of the colon is dubious. An intendedly curative colon resection is performed in two-thirds of these patients, but half of them will subsequently die from metastatic disease. Randomized trials of adjuvant therapy with fluorouracil in combination with levamisole or leucovorin have shown significant benefit in terms of increased disease-free survival and overall survival. In 1990 adjuvant treatment was recommended as routine therapy in high risk patients in USA. A number of European countries are routinely treating high risk patients with Dukes' C coloncarcinoma. The recommendations are based on results from several cooperative trials reviewed in this article. Treatment related toxicity accelerates with increasing age but was acceptable in the reviewed trials. Adjuvant therapy is widely accepted as an important supplement to surgery in high risk patients. A Conference on the results and experiences now available should take place in the near future in order to establish a national consensus on adjuvant chemotherapy in Denmark. Patients with resected Dukes' C coloncarcinoma should receive adjuvant chemotherapy including 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin. Randomized trials are needed to establish the most effective regimens but "no-treatment" controls are no longer ethically acceptable.