JENKINTOWN, Pa., January 29, 2007 — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) announces updates to the NCCN Colon Cancer Guidelines. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are widely recognized and applied as the standard for clinical care in oncology in both the community practice setting and in academic cancer centers. These guidelines are used extensively by managed care companies and by Medicare as the basis for coverage policies. These guidelines are updated continually and are based upon evaluation of scientific data integrated with expert judgment.
One of the major changes to the 2007 version of the guidelines was the update to the chemotherapy options for advanced or metastatic disease. The combination regimen CapeOX, which is capecitabine (Xeloda, Roche) and oxaliplatin (Eloxatin, sanofi~aventis), was added as an alternate option to the combination of fluorouracil, leucovorin and oxaliplatin (known as FOLFOX). The combination regimens of fluorouracil, leucovorin and irinotecan (Camptosar, Pfizer) (known as FOLFIRI) + cetuximab and irinotecan + cetuximab were added as treatment options after progression on bevacizumab-containing combination therapy.
Panitumumab (Vectibix, Amgen) was approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with EGFR-expressing, metastatic colorectal carcinoma with disease progression on or following fluoropyrimidine-, oxaliplatin-, or irinotecan-containing regimens. The NCCN Colon Cancer panel added panitumumab as alternate option to cetuximab after first or second progression on previous therapy. This addition came with a recommendation that patients should not be excluded from therapy on the basis of EGFR results.
NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are developed and updated through a consensus-driven process with explicit review of the scientific evidence by multidisciplinary panels of expert physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the guidelines are available free of charge at www.nccn.org.