Experimental Drug for Metastatic Colon Cancer Works

A new drug has been shown to significantly extend the lives of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Research presented at the ninth annual Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium showed that the investigational drug regorafenib successfully stopped tumor growth by stopping the cancers from developing a blood supply - a process known as angiogenesis.

Ask your oncologist about clinical trials with regorafenib.

Data was obtained from a randomized phase III trial of 760 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, named CORRECT. Median overall survival was 6.4 months for the patients taking regorafenib versus five months for placebo.

Regorafenib appeared to be most effective in halting growth rather than shrinking tumor size.

Regorafenib targets growth receptors on cells, inhibiting growth by blood vessels as well as the cancer itself. VEGFR, PDGFR-beta and KIT receptors are all targeted by regorafenib.

“When standard therapies for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer stop working, and the cancer continues to worsen, most patients only survive a few months,” said lead author Axel Grothey, M.D., professor of oncology at the Mayo Clinic. “So it’s exciting that this is the first time an agent has shown a statistically significant overall survival benefit, in some cases adding many more months of life, in these patients in a randomized phase III study,” Dr. Grothey said.

The projected cost of treatment with regorafenib has not yet been released by Bayer, as the drug has not yet been approved by the FDA.

Results are considered preliminary until research is published in a peer reviewed journal.

Disclosures released by the study authors included various funding, consulting and advisory positions with major pharmaceutical companies, namely Bayer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi, and Roche.