From the Desk of Dr. Lenz
No Need to Do Surgery Immediately for Patients with Advanced Colon Cancer
A study from Memorial Sloan Kettering recently showed that patients who have stage IV disease, which means spread to other organs, don’t need to undergo surgery immediately. If the tumor does not cause problems such as obstruction or bleeding, patients appear to do better to start with chemotherapy right away without delay because of the surgery.
Over 230 patients were studied with metastatic colon cancer. and the data showed that patients did very well when started with chemotherapy without surgery for the primary tumor. Only 7 percent required surgery for symptoms during chemotherapy.
Usually, in the conventional approach to treating stage IV disease, patients underwent colon surgery immediately following their diagnosis and would typically start chemotherapy treatments three to six weeks later. The rationale for immediate colon resection was to prevent future symptoms and complications from the primary tumor. It was assumed that the majority of colorectal cancers would have little response to chemotherapy.
However we have now more effective and less toxic chemotherapy which can shrink both colon tumors and the metastases. We need to caution that of course there are individual exceptions and each of these decisions needs to discuss with the surgeons and medical oncologists.
This news article was originally posted on November 5th, 2009 and was accurate at the time of publication. Since then, information may have changed or links may now be outdated. Please call our Answer Line 1-877-427-2111 for the latest information, or talk to your doctor before making any medical decisions.
Posted by Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD on November 5th, 2009
Tags: metastatic colorectal cancer, surgery, Treating Colorectal Cancer
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George in Rhode Island
November 5, 2009 at 9:32am
Thank you for this update on treatment. I have two questions:
When you say the patients do better, does this mean they have longer disease-specific survival, overall survival, or is there some other measure?
Do the patients do just a little better or a lot better? Is this a major step forward or just a small improvement in care?
Heinz-Josef Lenz
November 6, 2009 at 8:27pm
not sure what small or big is, they lived longer. the problem is that we always use the mean and we neglect the one we cure since it is only a subset which are not captured by any median time points. HJL