A Multicenter Cohort Study for XELOX (Capecitabine, Leucovorin plus Oxaliplatin) Therapy as First-Line Treatment in Elderly Patients with Unresectable Colorectal Cancer

Oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy with bevacizumab is now widely used for colorectal cancer patients. This study evaluated the efficacy and tolerability of XELOX (capecitabine + oxaliplatin + leucovorin combined) therapy with or without bevacizumab in elderly patients. One hundred and seven patients, consisting of 52 elderly (>70 years of age) and 55 non-elderly, with unresectable colorectal cancer were enrolled in this multicenter cooperative group study using a database between October 2009 and March 2012. We evaluated the outcomes in terms of the median time to treat failure (TTF), overall response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR) and tolerability in both age groups. The median TTF for the XELOX + bevacizumab regimen was 7.1 months in the non-elderly group and 8.1 months in the elderly group (p = 0.838). There was no significant difference in TTF between the two groups. The ORR and DCR in the non-elderly group were 30.8% and 73.1%, respectively. In the elderly group, the ORR was 40.0% and the overall DCR was 90.0%. No severe or uncontrollable adverse events were observed in the two groups. These data indicated that the XELOX chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab has an equivalent efficacy in both groups, without increasing the adverse events even in the elderly population.