Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Clinical determinants of survival in patients with 5-fluorouracil-based treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer: results of a multivariate analysis of 3825 patients.
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer are usually offered systemic chemotherapy as palliative treatment. A multivariate analysis was performed in order to identify predictors and their constellation that allow a valid prediction of the outcome in patients treated with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based therapy. ⋯ Patients can be divided into at least three risk groups depending on the four baseline clinical parameters: performance status, WBC count, alkaline phosphatase and number of metastatic sites. Any molecular or biological marker should be validated against these clinical parameters and decisions for more or less intensive treatments may be studied separately in these three risk groups. Also, clinical trials should be stratified according to the three risk groups.