Irinotecan in Combination with 5-fluorouracil and Leucovorin in the Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Overview

Background.
Introducing irinotecan and oxaliplatin in to the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer substantially improved the therapeutic results for this malignancy. The first results of clinical trials with these two drugs were published in 2000.

Methods and Results.
Between 1999 to 2004 we treated 51 patients with the combination of irinotecan 180mg /m² on day 1 and two hour infusion of leucovorin 200mg/m² and 5-FU push of 400mg/m² followed by infusion of 5- FU for 22 hours on days 1 and 2 every 2 weeks. Six patients (11.7 %) achieved complete response, 11 (21.57 % ) partial response, stabilisation was observed by 23 patients (45.1 %) and 21 patients were progressive (21.5 %). The median survival time was 18 months (95% CI, 16.93–19.7), median duration of response was 9 months (CI 95% 8.25–11.5).

Conclusions.
The combination of FOLFIRI is an effective and tolerable treatment of advanced colorectal cancer. However new treatment modalities to improve further the results of the treatment are still warranted.

Key words:
metastatic colorectal cancer, palliative treatment, chemotherapy, irinotecan, leucovorin- 5- fluorouracil.