Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery versus surgery alone in high-risk patients with resectable colorectal liver metastases: The CHARISMA randomized multicenter clinical trial.

Abstract

TPS790 Background: Colorectal carcinoma is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide, mostly as a consequence of metastatic disease. If metastases are confined to the liver, surgical resection is the only therapy providing potential for cure. Efforts to improve the outcome of hepatectomy for colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) by combining surgery with chemotherapy have failed to demonstrate overall survival (OS) benefit. This may partly be explained by the fact that previous trials on this subject involved strict inclusion criteria. Consequently, patients with a high oncological risk profile - who might benefit the most from chemotherapy – might have been underrepresented in previous trials. Several Clinical Risk Scores (CRS) have been developed predicting patients’ prognosis after resection of CRLM. The most widely used and validated CRS was described by Fong et al., which characterizes 2 risk groups (high versus low) based on 5 independent clinicopathologic prognostic variables. Each variable is assigned 1 point. Multiple retrospective observations showed that neo-/adjuvant chemotherapy induced significant OS benefit in patients with a high-risk profile (CRS of 3 to 5 points). The CHARISMA trial evaluates the impact of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with high-risk, primarily resectable liver-only colorectal metastases. We hypothesize that adding neo-adjuvant chemotherapy to surgery improves OS in this high-risk patient group. Methods: The CHARISMA trial is a randomized (1:1) phase III trial. Patients receive either surgery only for CRLM (arm A) or 6 cycles of neo-adjuvant Oxaliplatin + Capecitabine, followed by surgery (arm B). The primary endpoint is OS. On basis of retrospective data, the expected hazard ratio for arm B is 0.60. With an expected 5-year OS of 25% in arm A, a two-sided significance level α = 0.05 and power 1 - β = 0.8, 224 patients have to be recruited. Major eligibility criteria are: liver-only metastases, primarily resectable CRLM, high-risk patients (CRS 3-5). The trial is currently accruing in 10 Dutch liver centers and is registered in the “Dutch Trial Register”: NTR4893 ( www.trialregister.nl ). Clinical trial information: NTR4893.