Abstract

VERA-GIMON, Raúl et al. Tratamiento con radioterapia y quimioterapia en pacientes con carcinoma de recto 10 años de evaluación. Rev. venez. oncol. [online]. 2009, vol.21, n.3, pp.138-145. ISSN 0798-0582.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the results of concurrent radiotherapy and chemotherapy in patients with rectal cancer, and evaluating the treatment tolerance, recurrence pattern, toxicity and survival. METHODS: 50 patients with rectal carcinoma were included. 33 were treated postoperatively and 17 preoperatively. The 64 % received radiotherapy to the pelvis, 4 500-5 540 cGy for 5 to 6 weeks with daily 180 cGy fractions concurrent with 5-Fluorouracil 225 mg/m² by protracted infusion and 36 % of them received radiotherapy concurrent with bolus 5-Fluouracil with low dose leucovorin for 5 consecutive days, the first and fourth week of radiotherapy. RESULTS: The most frequent grade 3 and 4 toxicities with protracted infusion of 5-Fluouracil were diarrhea and enteritis; in patients treated with bolus 5-Fluouracil and low dose leucovorin diarrhea, radio dermatitis and neutropenia were seen. There were no toxic deaths associated with treatment. The majority of patients had stage III disease. The 60 % of patients underwent anterior rectal resection. The rate of local recurrence was 12 % and distant metastasis 24 %. At the time of the study analysis 42 % of the patients were alive without disease. CONCLUSIONS: The most common toxicities were diarrhea and enteritis. We observed more hematological toxicity (grade 3 neutropenia) in the group of patients treated with bolus 5-Fluoruracil and leucovorin. The rate of local recurrence was similar to the published data with the same regimens of treatment and the main cause of treatment failure was distant metastasis.

Keywords : Cancer; rectal; radiotherapy; chemotherapy; treatment.