Some colorectal cancer patients will have their cancer spread into the tissue within their abdomen or to the surfaces of abdominal organs.  This condition, called peritoneal carcinomatosis, can be treated successfully if it is recognized early.  Unfortunately, it is often not seen on routine scanning and not diagnosed when surgical treatment is possible.

A clinical trial at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda will see if a second surgery to look for peritoneal carcinomatosis in high-risk patients can find the disease earlier, treat it appropriately, and  improve survival.

Eligible patients for the trial will have already had surgery that removed all visible tumor and are considered to have no evidence of disease (NED). However, their cancer will have some high-risk features that makes it more likely that they might develop peritoneal carcinomatosis in the future.

The trial is not intended for patients who already have peritoneal carcinomatosis. Read the rest of this entry »

Fight Colorectal Cancer board member Dr. Indran Krishnan is a recent graduate of the Georgia Physicians Leadership Academy (GPLA).

GPLA was developed by the Medical Association of Georgia to develop physician leaders to improve health care delivery for their patients, communities, and the medical profession.

As a project for the year-long class, Dr. Krishnan set up a process to get high risk uninsured  Georgians free colonoscopies. Read the rest of this entry »

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

Mukherjee writes.

Cancer’s life is a recapitulation of the body’s life, its existence a pathological mirror of our own.Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced colorectal cancer is now an FDA approved indication for Fusilev® (levoleucovorin) in combination with 5-FU.

According to a news release from its manufacturer, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, the FDA agreed to include metastatic colorectal cancer on the Fusilev label on April 29, 2011.

Although Fusilev has been used off-label during the leucovorin shortage, it is now fully FDA-approved for the palliative treatment of advanced colorectal cancer that has spread beyond the colon or rectum. Read the rest of this entry »

ZALTRAP® (aflibercept) added to survival time when given along with FOLFIRI to colorectal cancer patients who had already progressed on earlier oxaliplatin treatment.

On April 26, 2011, sanofi-aventis and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced positive results for the Phase III VELOUR trial, which compared ZALTRAP to a placebo during FOLFIRI chemotherapy.

Detailed results will be available at an upcoming medical conference. Read the rest of this entry »