No Survival Benefit for Chemotherapy After Hepatic Resection in Colorectal Cancer

Adjuvant chemotherapy with mFOLFOX6 or capecitabine oxaliplatin improves survival in stage III colon cancer. Treatment guidelines recommend adjuvant chemotherapy after potential curative resection of liver metastases in patients with colorectal cancer despite limited data from randomized clinical trials.

Investigators in Japan randomized 300 patients with colorectal cancer and resectable hepatic metastases to hepatectomy alone or hepatectomy followed by 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy with mFOLFOX6. Most patients had colon primaries (77%), 0 to 3 positive nodes (82%), 1 to 3 liver metastases (91%), and synchronous metastases (56%); a minority had received prior non–oxaliplatin-containing fluorinated pyrimidine adjuvant chemotherapy after p…