Colorectal cancer is one of the most frequent types of cancer in Denmark with approximately 3,400 diagnosed patients per year. The prognosis for these patients is still very poor and more than half of them will develop metastatic disease and thus be candidates for chemotherapy.
In Denmark 5-FU and Oxaliplatin or Irinotecan has been used for several years either as combination or mono therapy. In recent years biological antibodies targeted against EGFR have been added to this treatment. A newly developed antibody is Panitumumab, which enables treatment every 3 weeks instead of weekly administration.
The effect of EGFR activation is mediated through intracellular pathways involving the KRAS protein. It has been proven that a mutation of KRAS causes the KRAS protein to be constantly activated, and patients with these mutations do not benefit from antibodies against EGFR. Approximately 40% of the patients present these mutations.
