Study confirms anal cancer standard of care

A large UK study confirms that chemoradiotherapy with 5FU and mitomycin-C remains the standard of care for anal cancer. The study also showed that cisplatin was not superior to mitomycin-C and there was no benefit in adding maintenance chemotherapy to the standard of care. ACTII, conducted by the UK National Cancer Research Institute, randomised 940 patients to receive radiation therapy given at the same time as 5-FU with either mitomycin-C or cisplatin. Patients were also randomised to receive follow-up maintenance therapy with cisplatin and 5-FU after chemoradiation or no maintenance therapy. After a median follow-up of three years, the complete response rate at 6 months was 94% in the mitomycin-C group compared with 95% in the cisplatin group. Recurrence-free survival at 3 years was 75% both in patients who had maintenance therapy and in those who did not. Overall survival at 3 years was 85% in patients who received maintenance therapy and 84% in those who did not.’ “Although this trial did not show an improvement from adding maintenance therapy, some form of additional treatment will be the subject of future studies, to determine whether some subset of patients might benefit from it,” the study’s lead author said....