RESUMEN
Aim: To examine the impact of tumor sidedness on clinical outcomes in Chinese patients with metastatic colorectal cancer treated with folinic acid/fluorouracil/oxaliplatin (FOLFOX-4) ± cetuximab in the TAILOR trial. Patients & methods: Clinical data from 391 patients were evaluated for tumor sidedness. Results: Patients with left-sided tumors who received cetuximab plus FOLFOX-4 had a significantly longer overall survival (medians: 22.0 vs 18.3 months; p = 0.007) and progression-free survival (medians: 9.3 vs 7.9 months; p = 0.006) compared with FOLFOX-4 alone. Overall survival (medians: 11.5 vs 9.4 months; p = 0.664) and progression-free survival (medians: 7.4 vs 4.5 months; p = 0.068) also improved in patients with right-sided tumors. Conclusion: Adding cetuximab to first-line FOLFOX-4 in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer improved clinical outcomes irrespective of primary tumor side.
Cetuximab is a drug used to treat people with advanced metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) with a gene called RAS wild-type (wt) and is given along with standard chemotherapy. The TAILOR study showed that in people with RAS wt mCRC cetuximab together with chemotherapy worked better than chemotherapy alone and had similar side effects. This analysis of the TAILOR study looked at whether Chinese people with RAS wt mCRC responded differently to treatment with cetuximab plus chemotherapy depending on the primary tumor location (whether left or right side of the colon). This analysis found that people with left- or right-sided primary tumors who received cetuximab plus chemotherapy lived longer and their cancer progressed more slowly compared with those who received chemotherapy alone.