Current questions in the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer: the CAIRO studies of the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group

Abstract

The outcome of patients with advanced colorectal cancer has significantly improved in the past decade because of the development of new treatment strategies. The Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group (DCCG) is a national multidisciplinary clinical research group in The Netherlands. The 3 CAIRO studies of the DCCG address clinically relevant questions in patients with advanced colorectal cancer: the benefit of combination versus sequential therapy, targeting vascular endothelial growth factor and epidermal growth factor receptor, and the role of maintenance therapy. This article presents the outline of these studies and summarizes the current results.