Palliative Radiotherapy And Chemotherapy Instead Of Surgery In Symptomatic Rectal Cancer With Synchronous Unresectable Metastases: Final Overall Survival Analysis Of Phase Ii Study.

726 Background: A palliative surgery and chemotherapy is the standard of care in stage IV rectal cancer patients with pelvic symptoms. Recently we published primary results of the single-arm phase II study on combination of short-course radiation (5x5 Gy) with an oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy started after one-week rest (NCT01157806). The study met its primary end-point with only 17.5% (95% CI 13% to 22%) of patients (pts) who needed stoma throughout the observation and 67% (95% CI 58% to 76%) of pts having significant resolution of pelvic symptoms. Here we provide the long-term follow up data after median 60 months of observation. Methods: 40 consecutive patients with symptomatic rectal cancer with unresectable distant metastases were enrolled from September 2009 to February 2011. The time of treatment failure on chemotherapy (TTF3) was measured from the start of radiation to disease progression on fluoropiridine, oxaliplatin and irinotecan. All eligible patients were assessed for KRAS/NRAS status. Due ...