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Current Issues in Adjuvant Treatment of Stage II Colon Cancer

¹ Service d’Oncologie Médicale, Hôpital Tenon, 4 Rue de la Chine, 75970 Paris Cedex 20, France
² CancerEst, Hôpital Saint Antoine, 184 Rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, 75571 Paris Cedex 12, France
³ GERCOR (Franch Oncology Research Group), 22 Rue Malher, 75004 Paris, France
⁴ Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, Minnesota 55905
⁵ Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, P Vall d’Hebron 119-129, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
⁶ NSABP Foundation Research Program, 4 Allegheny Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212
⁷ IDDI, 430 Avenue Louise, BP 14, B 1050 Brussels, Belgium
⁸ Ospedale S. Martino, Largo Benzi 10, Genova 16132, Italy
⁹ Hôpital Saint-Louis, 1 Avenue Claude Vellefaux, 75010 Paris, France
¹⁰ Arcispedale S. Maria Buova, Viale Resorgimento 80, Regio Emilia 42100, Italy
¹¹ Hôpital Saint-Antoine, 184 Rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, 75571 Paris Cedex 12, France

Correspondence: Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Thierry André, MD, E-mail: thierry.andre{at}tnn.aphp.fr.

ABSTRACT

Background: Adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil modulated by folinic acid, combined with oxaliplatin, has now become an accepted standard of care for patients with stage III colon cancer. In contrast, the use of adjuvant therapy for stage II patients remains controversial, and the identification of reliable prognostic factors to aid therapeutic decision making is crucial.

Methods: The authors critically review the results of clinical trials and meta-analyses investigating the value of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage II patients, emphasizing the heterogeneous nature of this population and the difficulty of performing clinical trials with sufficient power to reliably assess treatment efficacy. They also discuss the evidence concerning potential prognostic factors, particularly molecular markers.

Results: Available clinical trial data do not support the routine use of adjuvant chemotherapy for all stage II patients but suggest that it should be considered, particularly for certain high-risk patients. Recent guidelines advocate considering factors such as tumor differentiation, tumor perforation, number of lymph nodes examined, and T stage when assessing the likely benefit:risk ratio. Microsatellite instability and allelic imbalance seem to be strong predictors of good and poor prognosis, respectively, and in the near future, therapeutic decision-making models are likely to be further refined by the inclusion of such molecular markers.

Conclusions: There is growing evidence that the prognosis of certain stage II patients with unfavorable prognostic factors can be improved by adjuvant chemotherapy, and increasingly refined tools are now available to define those most likely to benefit. Referral of stage II patients for individual assessment is strongly recommended.

Key Words: Colon cancer, stage II • Adjuvant chemotherapy • 5-Fluorouracil • Leucovorin • Oxaliplatin

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