Adding cetuximab following colon cancer surgery does not improve disease-free survival

Adding the drug cetuximab, the active ingredient of Erbitux from German drug major Merck KGaA (MRK: DE), to a regimen of drugs used for the treatment of patients following surgery for stage III colon cancer did not result in improved disease-free survival, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA.

Patients who have surgery for removal of stage III colon cancer have a 50% chance of cure. Multiple trials have established the benefit of chemotherapy after surgery in reducing the recurrence risk. "Specifically, [the drugs] leucovorin, fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX or slightly different method, FLOX) provides significant benefit in both disease-free and overall survival compared with the prior standard of fluorouracil and leucovorin," according to background information in the article.

In the setting of metastatic colorectal cancer, the drugs cetuximab and panitumumab, alone and in combination with chemotherapy, have provided additional benefit to that obtained with chemotherapy alone. "This benefit, however, is limited to patients with tumors expressing the wild-type [a strain used as a standard reference to compare any mutant derivatives] form of the gene KRAS as opposed to those with the mutated form of KRAS," the authors write.