Combination Chemotherapy in Treating Patients With Advanced Colorectal Cancer

OBJECTIVES:

• Compare the time to progression in patients with locally advanced, locally recurrent, or metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma treated with combinations of oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, leucovorin calcium, and irinotecan.
• Compare the quality of life, response rate, time to treatment failure, and overall survival in patients treated with these regimens.
• Compare the toxicity of these regimens in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to ECOG performance status (0-1 vs 2), prior adjuvant chemotherapy (yes vs no), prior immunotherapy (yes vs no), and age (under 65 vs 65 and over). Patients are randomized to one of three treatment arms.

Only arm II remains open to accrual.

• Arm I (Saltz regimen): Patients receive irinotecan IV over 90 minutes followed by leucovorin calcium IV over 15 minutes and fluorouracil IV once a week for 4 weeks followed by 2 weeks of rest. Courses repeat every 6 weeks. (Arm I closed to accrual as of March 15, 2002.)
• Arm II (FOLFOX4 regimen): Patients receive oxaliplatin IV over 2 hours on day 1 and leucovorin calcium IV over 2 hours plus fluorouracil IV over 22 hours on days 1 and 2. Courses repeat every 2 weeks.
• Arm III (oxaliplatin plus irinotecan): Patients receive oxaliplatin IV over 2 hours and irinotecan IV over 30 minutes on day 1. Courses repeat every 3 weeks. (Arm III closed to accrual as of March 15, 2002.) Treatment continues in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Quality of life is assessed before treatment, during treatment (arm specific), and after completion of treatment.

Patients are followed every 3 months for 1 year, every 6 months for 2 years, and then annually thereafter.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 825 patients (275 per arm) have been accrued for this study thus far. Additional patients are being accrued on arm II. (Arms I and III closed to accrual as of March 15, 2002.)