Clinical Trial in Patients With Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Inclusion Criteria: Patients must have surgically incurable colon or rectal adenocarcinoma Karnofsky Performance Status of 60% or greater Patients may have symptomatic neuropathy Patients must have a life expectancy of at least 4 months Patients must be alimenting, receiving at least 1500Kcal/day nutrition, by any route Patients must have bidimensional measurable disease for response assessment Patients may have received adjuvant chemotherapy with fluoropyrimidine therapy Patients must have recovered from the toxicities of prior therapy, at least 4 weeks since prior adjuvant chemotherapy and major surgery Serum creatinine less than 2.4mg%, serum bilirubin less than 3.0mg%, WBC greater than 3,200/mm2, AGC greater than 1,500/mm3, platelet count greater than 90,000/mm3 and SGOT (AST) and SGPT (ALT) less than 3 times the upper limit of normal Male and non-pregnant, non-lactating female patients must be >18 years old. Exclusion Criteria: Concurrent infection Failure of the patient or the patient's legal representative to sign the Informed consent Inability to obtain Informed Consent because of psychiatric or complex medical problem Patients with unstable oncologic emergency Patients with unstable medical conditions such as angina, transient ischemic attacks, rising creatinine, accelerated hypertension, etc. Cerebellar neurologic syndromes such as Parkinson's Disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotonia Known intolerance to fluoropyrimidine therapy suggestive of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase deficiency.