Relationship of completion of planned treatment and timing of adjuvant chemotherapy to survival in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).

3652 Background: Adjuvant therapy results in significant improvement in disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with localized CRC. Although addition of oxaliplatin based therapy improves outcome, little is known about the significance of timing of adjuvant therapy and its completion in such patients. Our study aims to determine the prognostic impact of timing of adjuvant therapy and its completion in early-stage CRC. Methods: Medical records of patients with stage III colon and stage II and III rectal cancer diagnosed between 1993 and 2000 in the province of Saskatchewan were reviewed. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the prognostic importance of various clinico- pathologic factors including age (65 vs. < 65 years), gender, disease stage (2 vs.3), tumor site (colon vs. rectal), grade (3 vs. < 3), failure to complete adjuvant treatment, number of examined lymph nodes (< 12 vs. ≥ 12), timing of adjuvant therapy (< 56 vs. ≥ 56 days), and T status (T4 vs. < T4). R...