Colon Cancer Recurrent Rates

Recurrence rates of colon cancer, determined by number of involved nodes and serosal penetration, as defined by the Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group adjuvant trial, agree with most modern single-institution series. The median survival time from the clinical detection of metastases is 6 to 8 months.However, larger reviews of patients with metastatic disease do not represent survival statistics applicable to smaller, more selected series. For instance, numerous single-institution treatment series have consistently selected smaller groups of patients with either isolated liver metastases or isolated pulmonary metastases from colon and rectal carcinoma, who have been shown to have long-term survival regardless of treatment response. If patients are diagnosed with minimal metastatic disease isolated to a single organ and have no dysfunction (so-called Eastern Cooperative Study Group [ECOG] 0 performance status), median survival without any treatment at all may be between 2 and 3 years.If these “good biology” patients are accrued to treatment protocols and compared with historic controls, whatever treatment is being examined could inappropriately be touted as effective.