An individual patient data meta-analysis of long supported adjuvant chemotherapy with oral carmofur in patients with curatively resected colorectal cancer

To reappraise the benefits of the long supported chemotherapy with carmofur , a meta-analysis based on individual patient data from the three clinical trials was performed by pooling 614 patients from three trials, there is a statistically significant survival benefit (2p=0.032) and disease-free surv ival (DFS) benefit (2p=0.021) for carmofur; and a highly significant advant age for carmofur in DFS (2p=0.0004) and in survival (2p=0.004) in Dukes' C patients. This IPD meta-analysis strongly suggested an effect of oral carmo fur in a long supported chemotherapy for curatively resected colorectal car cinoma.