Outcomes of irinotecan-based chemotherapy regimens in elderly medicare patients with metastatic colorectal cancer
January 28th, 2010 Posted by: admin
Publication year: 2009
Source: The American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy, Volume 7, Issue 6, December 2009, Pages 343-354
Nour A., Obeidat , Françoise G., Pradel , Ilene H., Zuckerman , Sylvain, DeLisle , C. Daniel, Mullins
Background: Several population-based studies have confirmed the benefits of adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin for treatment of colorectal cancer. Few population-based studies have evaluated other chemotherapies that are now available for colorectal cancer management.Objective: This study primarily sought to evaluate the survival benefit of first-line irinotecan use in a group of Medicare patients with stage IV (metastatic) colorectal cancer.Methods: Data on chemotherapy users with a diagnosis of colorectal cancer reported between 1998 and 2002 were obtained from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database. Irinotecan, marketed in 1997, was one of the newer chemotherapy agents in the available data. Chemotherapy…
