Adjuvant therapy with the monoclonal antibody Edrecolomab plus fluorouracil-based therapy does not improve overall survival of patients with stage III colon cancer

Abstract

Purpose: Edrecolomab (ED) is a murine monoclonal antibody targeting the EpCam antigen. This phase III randomized multicenter trial investigated the benefit of adding ED to fluorouracil (FU) based therapy in patients with stage III colorectal cancer.

Patients and methods: Patients with stage III colon cancer were randomly assigned to one of two treatments after curative surgery. Patients in arm 1 received five infusions of ED together with FU-based chemotherapy; patients in arm 2 received FU-based chemotherapy alone. The primary end point was overall survival (OS).

Results: One thousand eight hundred thirty-nine patients were randomly assigned; results were analyzed on an intent-to-treat basis. Patient characteristics were well-balanced across treatment arms. Five-year follow-up has been completed. Patients randomly assigned to ED plus FU-based therapy showed a 5-year survival rate of 69.6% while for patients receiving FU-based therapy, the rate was 68.2%. The hazard ratio for death with ED plus FU-based therapy compared to FU-based therapy was 0.896 (95% CI, 0.752 to 1.068), which was not statistically significant (P = .220). The adverse effect profiles of the two treatment arms were similar, with the main adverse effects being diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nausea. Anaphylaxis occurred in fewer than 1% of patients receiving ED.

Conclusion: For patients with stage III colon cancer, the addition of ED to FU-based therapy had no statistically significant effect on OS.