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Swedish
researchers report that following colorectal cancer surgery,
measurement of the tumor's thymidylate synthase (TS) level
may help predict which patients will benefit -- and which
may do worse -- if they have follow-up chemotherapy.
Dr. David
Edler reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on a study
of 442 patients who underwent surgery alone for colorectal
cancer, and 420 who received the widely used chemotherapy
drug 5-FU following their cancer surgery.
About
one-third of the patients whose tumors had the highest TS
level of TS had "a significantly longer disease-free
survival if they were treated with (chemotherapy) compared
with surgery alone," the researchers reported.
But 28
percent of the patients who had low TS levels actually seemed
"to have a worse outcome when treated with adjuvant chemotherapy,"
the researchers found.
"The
study indicates that patients with high TS levels may benefit
from adjuvant 5-FU–based chemotherapy," the researchers
concluded.
Source:
Colorectal
Cancer Week of May 5, 2002
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