Phase III study of weekly high-dose infusional fluorouracil plus folinic acid with or without irinotecan in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer:: European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Gastrointestinal Group study 40986

Purpose To demonstrate that adding irinotecan to a standard weekly schedule of high-dose, infusional fluorouracil (FU) and leucovorin (folinic acid [FA]) can prolong progression-free survival (PFS). Patients and Methods Four hundred thirty patients with measurable or assessable metastatic colorectal cancer were randomly assigned to receive either FA 500 mg/m(2) as a 2-hour infusion and FU 2.6 g/m(2) by intravenous 24-hour infusion, both administered weekly for 6 weeks, followed by a 2-week rest (Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur Internistische Onkologie [AlO] arm, n = 216), or a similar schedule but with FU 2.3 or 2.0 g/m(2) preceded by irinotecan 80 mg/m(2) administered over 30 minutes (experimental group, n = 214). Results The median PFS time in the experimental group was 8.5 months (95% CI, 7.6 to 9.9 months) compared with 6.4 months (95% CI, 5.3 to 7.2 months) in the AlO arm (P <.0001). The median overall survival time was increased from 16.9 to 20.1 months (P = 2779) The.. objective response rate was 62.2% (95% CI, 55.0% to 69.5%) in the experimental group and 34.4% (95% CI, 27.5% t0 41.3%) In the AlO arm (P <.0001). Conclusion The addition of irinotecan to the standard AlO FU/FA regimen was associated with a highly significant improvement in PFS and response rate and was well tolerated. The results of this study confirm that irinotecan in combination with high-dose infusional FU/FA is a reference first-line treatment.