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Progress in the Adjuvant Treatment of Colon Cancer
Has It Influenced Clinical Practice?
Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD;
Frederico Costa, MD
JAMA. 2005;294:2758-2760.
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Colon cancer is a common malignancy in economically developed countries, particularly in North America, Europe, and Australia, and is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the Western world.1-3 Every year, colorectal cancer is responsible for an estimated 400 000 deaths worldwide.1-3
Among patients with colon cancer, 70% present with apparently localized disease. In these patients, surgery can be curative, but relapses after complete resection are frequent. Colon cancer is not uniformly fatal and there are large differences in survival depending on the stage of the disease at diagnosis. The pathological stage is currently the most important determinant of prognosis. The classification system described by Dukes in 1930 is still widely used, but it no longer fulfills the requirements of modern tumor staging because it does not take into account distant metastases, number of lymph nodes involved, and carcinomas limited to . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Author Affiliations: Digestive Oncology Unit, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium (Dr Van Cutsem) and Centro de Oncologia, Hospital Sírio Libanês, São Paulo, Brazil (Dr Costa).
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