FLUOROURACIL COLON-RECTUM ADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY.

Abstract

Since the synthesis of the fluorinated pyrimidines in 1957 by Heidelberger and his co-workers, 1 fluorouracil has been extensively used for cancer chemotherapy and has been found to be the most effective agent to date in the treatment of colon and rectum lesions. In the past few years the use of chemotherapy compounds as adjuvant therapy to curative surgical procedures has been practiced and in 1961, fluorouracil was added as a double blind adjuvant to the primary treatment of colon and rectal carcinoma at Roswell Park Memorial Institute. Requirements for the entrance of patients on this study were as follows: (1) the current malignancy could not have been treated with radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery prior to admission, (2) patients with a previous or concomitant malignancy regardless of site, except for basal cell cancers of the skin, were excluded, (3) if the preoperative white blood cell count was below 5,000 cells