Erbitux (cetuximab), offers another option for patients who have colorectal cancer that resists standard chemotherapy treatment, according to an article written by two Mayo Clinic cancer researchers published in the current edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Erbitux (cetuximab) received FDA approval to treat patients with advanced colorectal cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Erbitux is the first monoclonal antibody approved to treat this type of cancer and is indicated as a combination treatment to be given intravenously with irinotecan, another drug approved to fight colorectal cancer, or alone if patients cannot tolerate irinotecan.
The article comments on a phase 2 randomized, three-year study that compared cetuximab combined with irinotecan, a standard chemotherapy regimen, to cetuximab alone in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that is resistant to treatment with irinotecan. The study was led by David Cunningham, M.D., Royal Marsden Hospital, London and Surrey, in the United Kingdom, and its results will be published in the same issue of NEJM.
Dr. Erlichman notes that although the study indicated the benefits of cetuximab were modest in terms of stopping the cancer, patients’ response to the drug, and survival, it is nonetheless a step forward in the treatment of colorectal cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
"Cetuximab combined with irinotecan offers patients with metastatic colorectal cancer another treatment option after failing treatment with irinotecan," he says.
Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cancer killer, the disease accounts for 56,000 deaths every year in the United States.
Irinotecan is a chemotherapy drug that is given as a treatment for some types of cancer. It is most commonly used to treat cancer of the large bowel alone or combined with two other chemotherapy drugs, fluorouracil and leucovorin. Oxaliplatin is another approved chemotherapy regimen that can be used in combination with fluorouracil and leucovorin as first-line treatment for colorectal cancer, or in patients who have failed irinotecan.