Adjuvant chemotherapy in colorectal cancer
Evidence Summaries
A Cochrane review 1 included 33 randomized trials and 17 meta-analyses containing data on stage II colon cancer patients undergoing adjuvant therapy versus surgery alone. The participants in the trials were patients with completely resected colon (n=7,731) or rectal (n=7,600) cancers. With regards to the effect of adjuvant therapy on stage II colon cancer, the pooled relative risk ratio for overall survival was 0.96 (95% CL 0.88 to 1.05). With regards to disease-free survival, the pooled relative risk ratio was 0.83 (95% Cl 0.75 to 0.92).