Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide with 1.8 million new cases annually and is ranked second in cancer mortality, mostly due to metastatic CRC. Resection of colorectal cancer (CRC) metastases provides good survival but is probably underused in real-world patients. A prospective Finnish nationwide study enrolled treatable metastatic CRC patients (RAXO Study). The intervention was the assessment of resectability upfront and twice during first-line therapy by the multidisciplinary team. The primary outcome was resection rates and survival. This resulted in high any-site and multisite resectability, conversion, and resection rates, with impressive survival, not just for upfront resectable and converted metastases but also for recurrences after resection and later appearing metastases.
The authors approached Meducom to assist in the development of this important, peer-review paper that shows the importance of (repeated) resection of metastases. The authors hope that the outcomes of this study encourages others to adopt similar practices.
P. Österlund et al. Repeated centralized multidisciplinary team assessment of resectability, clinical behavior, and outcomes in 1086 Finnish metastatic colorectal cancer patients (RAXO): A nationwide prospective intervention study. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe 3 (2021) 100049 [link]