5FU

Combination chemotherapy including infusional 5-fluorouracil (5FU)/leucovorin with irinotecan (FOLFIRI) or with oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) is considered a reference first-line chemotherapy.

5-Fluorouracil (5FU) is a pyrimidine analogue which decreases fibroblast proliferation in vitro and in animal models.

is of interest because it has explored a sequential adjuvant treatment using most of the known active drugs in advanced gastric cancer: four cycles of 5FU, leucovorin and irinotecan (FOLFIRI) followed by three cycles of cisplatin and docetaxel.

Cetuximab was administered with irinotecan (90-minute infusion of 180 mg/[m.sup.2] irinotecan, every two weeks), with FOLFIRI (2-hour infusion of 400 mg/[m.sup.2] leucovorin, bolus of 400 mg/[m.sup.2] 5FU and then a 46-hour infusion of 2400 mg/[m.sup.2] 5FU and a 90-minute infusion of 180 mg/[m.sup.2] irinotecan on the first day of a two-week cycle) or with leucovorin, 5FU and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX; 2-hour infusion of 200 mg/[m.sup.2] of leucovorin, bolus of 400 mg/[m.sup.2] of 5FU and then a 46-hour infusion of 2400 mg/[m.sup.2] of 5FU and 2-hour infusion of 85 mg/[m.sup.2] of oxaliplatin on day 1).

To date, an OS advantage has been established from postoperative treatment in resectable disease with bolus 5FU and leucovorin (LV) [5].

[23] noted significantly higher NASH scores in patients who had received pre-operative chemotherapy (mainly irinotecan) than in those who had been treated with 5FU or who had received no chemotherapy.

Today, we know that leucovorin, 5FU and irinotecan (FOLFIRI) combined with cetuximab is an effective therapy that significantly prolongs progression-free survival and increases response rate in first-line therapy [14].

The results of this small trial testing the combination of 5FU, leucovorin, irinotecan and panitumumab in first-line treatment of metastatic CRC are reported in this paper.

By contrast, whether infusional iv 5FU can be replaced by capecitabine is unclear for the combinations with irinotecan.

Patients in both arms received two initial 6-week cycles of cisplatin/5FU/leucovorin (LV) (PLF) chemotherapy (cisplatin 60 mg/[m.sup.2] on days 1, 15 and 29, and 5FU and LV 2 g/[m.sup.2] and 500 mg/[m.sup.2], respectively, on days 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 and 36).

The most commonly utilized topical therapy for VAIN is the antimetabolite chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil (5FU).

The chemotherapy regimen was mitomycin C 12 mg/[m.sup.2] on day 1 and 5 and fluorouracil (5FU) 1000 mg/[m.sup.2] as a continuous infusion on days 1-4, with the first four fractions, and 5FU 1000 mg/[m.sup.2] with the last four fractions of irradiation.