Combined Anticancer Treatment of Advanced Colon Cancer

More than 10% of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) already show peritoneal carcinomatosis at the time of initial diagnosis and up to 25% of all patients develop peritoneal carcinomatosis during the natural course of their disease as a common sign of tumor progression or recurrence. The existing data suggests that CRS and HIPEC as an integral part of a multidisciplinary treatment concept may improve long-term survival of selected patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis of colonic origin. Moreover, hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion with oxaliplatin in combination with synchronous application of 5-FU/leucovorin seems to improve the efficacy of HIPEC in comparison to a mitomycin C-based intraperitoneal treatment regimen and may lead to a better local tumor control. The improved systemic treatment strategy with neoadjuvant chemotherapy may lead to increased rates of complete macroscopic cytoreduction and together with the adjuvant treatment to better control of distant metastasis and tumor recurrence. However, there is no prospective study available evaluating the clinical and oncological outcome after standard-of-care chemotherapy including targeted anticancer therapy in combination with CRS and HIPEC. The published morbidity and mortality rates after CRS and HIPEC are comparable to other major gastrointestinal surgery and seem to be acceptable considering the expected improvement of oncological outcome.