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The role of adjuvant chemotherapy in stage II colorectal cancer patients

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International Journal of Colorectal Disease Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Adjuvant chemotherapy use in stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) is debated. We evaluated the prognostic significance of clinicopathological features recommended by most guidelines for identifying high-risk stage II CRC and adjuvant chemotherapeutic response.

Methods

We enrolled 1,039 stage II CRC patients who underwent curative surgery at Taipei Veterans General Hospital from January 2005 to December 2010. Seventy-seven patients who received radiotherapy were excluded. The endpoint was disease-free survival.

Results

Of 962 patients, 37 had stage T4 tumors; 50, lymphovascular invasion; 39, poor differentiation; 249, preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels >5 ng/mL; and 53 underwent emergent operations. One hundred ninety-four patients received 5-fluorouracil-based adjuvant chemotherapy. During a median follow-up period of 60.2 months, recurrence developed in 110 patients (11.4 %). The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) was 87.6 %. In multivariate analysis, preoperative CEA >5 ng/ml (p = 0.001), emergent operation for obstruction/perforation (p = 0.008), lymphovascular invasion (p = 0.014), and T4 disease (p = 0.030) were significantly associated with poor DFS. High-risk stage II patients (n = 484) benefited from adjuvant chemotherapy (5-year DFS with and without adjuvant chemotherapy, 87.3 vs. 78.9 %; p = 0.028).

Conclusions

Adjuvant chemotherapy improved DFS in high-risk stage II CRC patients, but not in low-risk patients.

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Correspondence to Shih-Ching Chang.

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Hung-Hsin Lin and Yu-Yao Chang had equal contribution to this manuscript.

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Lin, HH., Chang, YY., Lin, JK. et al. The role of adjuvant chemotherapy in stage II colorectal cancer patients. Int J Colorectal Dis 29, 1237–1243 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00384-014-1943-6

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