Pharmaceutical giant Merck has announced that results from an interim analysis of its Phase III trial are in, and are a disappointment.
The study, known as PETACC-81, investigated the potential of Erbitux (cetuximab) as adjuvant treatment of stage III colon cancer following complete surgical removal of the primary tumor.
The two arms of the study were: One group received standard combination chemotherapy of FOLFOX 4, while another group received FOLFOX 4 plus Erbitux. Investigators looked for a benefit in disease free survival from the adjuvant arm, but the analysis did not support that hypothesis, at least not in that setting.
PETACC-8 is a randomized, controlled, multinational European trial sponsored and coordinated by the Fédération Francophone de Cancérologie Digestive (FFCD), Dijon, France. It involved 2,559 European patients, with 1,602 whose tumors were KRAS wild-type, all of whom had stage III colon cancer that had been fully resected.
According to PETACC-8's Principal Investigator, Professor Julien Taïeb from the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris. “Unfortunately, since the introduction of FOLFOX as standard treatment, all attempts to further improve prevention of disease recurrence have proved unsuccessful. We look forward to sharing our data at future scientific congresses.”
Source: Therapeutics Daily
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