‘Inoperable colorectal cancer patients can now live 20-50 months longer’

Colorectal cancer chemotherapy has steadily improved, and the progress is ongoing. Then, who are the current candidates for chemotherapy, and how has the outcome of chemotherapy for colorectal cancer changed?

Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment that differs from localized treatments, such as surgery and radiation therapy. Depending on the type of chemotherapy drug, it can be injected or taken orally, and the advantage of chemotherapy is that it enters the bloodstream and travels throughout the body, so it can reach areas that surgery or radiation therapy cannot.

For this reason, chemotherapy is often used before surgery to shrink the size of the tumor to reduce the scope of surgery, or to improve the prognosis if there is a high risk of recurrence after surgery. In addition, in cases where surgery is not possible due to metastasis to distant sites, chemotherapy is not aimed at curing the disease but at controlling the cancer and symptoms to increase survival and improve quality of life.

Professor Choi Jung-yoon, of the Department of Hematology-Oncology at Korea University Ansan Hospital explained on the YouTube channel “Korea University Hospital” that currently, chemotherapy for colorectal cancer is given to patients who are at high risk of recurrence after surgery, including before surgery, or to patients with distant metastases.

The latter is called adjuvant therapy, and Choi also presented the latest results of adjuvant therapy for colorectal cancer.

"Even if the cancer is completely removed by surgery, adjuvant cancer therapy, which is a treatment to remove cancer cells that are hidden from view, can reduce the recurrence rate of colorectal cancer by about 35 percent and the mortality rate by 24 percent," Professor Choi said.

Patients with inoperable metastatic cancer are also treated with palliative chemotherapy, which has also been shown to cure colorectal cancer.

"Palliative chemotherapy has increased the survival time of patients with inoperable metastatic colorectal cancer by about 20 to 50 months," Choi said. "It is necessary to give chemotherapy because it is expected to improve the quality of life by controlling symptoms."