If you are diagnosed with stage III colon cancer, you will probably receive about six months of treatment with FOLFOX after surgery. Research shows that this treatment regimen helps prevent recurrence for some – but not all – patients with stage III colon cancer.  A clinical trial has been launched to answer two questions about this current standard of care:

1. Will recurrence rates go down if both FOLFOX and celecoxib (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug similar to aspirin) are used for treatment?

2.  Will recurrence rates stay the same and long term side effects decrease if FOLFOX is used for three months?

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Dr. Edith Mitchell

Last night, Dr. Edith Mitchell of Thomas Jefferson University Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, updated colorectal cancer patients on the latest research and treatment news in an online webinar.

Dr. Mitchell highlighted the most important news for colon and rectal cancer patients to come from the 2011 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco last month. She answer such questions as…

“Can doctors determine the chances that my cancer may return?”

“Can my doctors determine if I need chemotherapy?”

“Does Avastin or Erbitux benefit my stage III cancer treatment?”

“Are there any promising new treatments on the horizon?”

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Pam McAllister attended the 2010 GI Cancers Symposium in Orlando on a C3 scholarship.

Pam is one of the original colorectal cancer research advocates and has been involved with research advocacy activities for well over a decade. She serves on numerous research panels and has co-authored many articles including the 2008 American Cancer Society Screening Guidelines and the ASCO Clinical Opinion on Testing for KRAS Mutations.

Here is the first of three articles she has written for C3’s Research  and Treatment News about what she learned at the Orlando meeting.

Last year we learned that Avastin® (bevacizumab) was not effective in increasing disease free survival in stage III colon cancer except for a possible small transient benefit that disappeared soon after the drug was discontinued. Read the rest of this entry »