Chemotherapy for Colorectal Cancer

Carcinoma of the large bowel, which will afflict over 150,000 Americans this year, is second only to lung cancer as a cause of death from cancer1. Although most patients present with surgically resectable disease, almost half die of the cancer. Radiation therapy has a largely palliative role. In the past, chemotherapy resulted in only infrequent and usually transient shrinkage of the tumor, scarcely justifying the discomforts and costs of the treatment. In recent years, however, there have been some advances. In the discussion that follows, credence is given only to therapeutic claims validated by controlled trials with sufficiently long . . .