BMJ  2004;329:124-126 (17 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7458.124

Editorial

New treatments for colon cancer

Though experimental, they may herald a new era of cancer therapy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Until the early 1990s the medical treatment of colorectal cancer represented a therapeutic desert with little or no progress. Since then we have witnessed the establishment of effective adjuvant chemotherapy and the treatment of advanced disease has improved substantially. In the past year colorectal cancer has been at the cutting edge of new developments in medical oncology. Although some of these new treatments are still experimental and not yet standard practice, they are worth flagging up at this preliminary stage because the proof of principle they have established may herald a change in the way all cancer is treated in future.

Fluorouracil has represented the cornerstone of medical treatment of colorectal cancer for nearly 40 years, but it took until 1990 to show that adjuvant chemotherapy with fluorouracil with levamisole improved disease free and overall survival in Dukes's C (stage III) colon cancer.1 w1 Subsequent studies have shown that fluorouracil with . . . [Full text of this article]

Maurice Slevin, consultant medical oncologist

Barts and the London NHS Trust, London EC1A 7BE (maurice@slevin.uk.com)

Sarah Payne, specialist registrar in medical oncology

Barts and the London NHS Trust, London EC1A 7BE


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