Active clinical trials for "Colorectal Neoplasms"

Although it is possible to cure bowel cancer when it is detected at an early stage, in many cases it may spread to involve other organs and in these cases is generally incurable. Chemotherapy prolongs survival and improves quality of life in such patients, but standard chemotherapy for this disease has not been defined. There are several possible chemotherapy treatments for patients with bowel cancer, which has spread to other organs. However, these treatments are only partly effective and only work for a limited period of time. Most treatments are associated with a number of possible side effects which may have a detrimental effect on quality of life. Thus, it is imperative that more effective treatments with the lowest possible risk of side effects are developed. Previous studies have shown that the addition of a new type of antibody treatment (bevacizumab) to an intensive combination chemotherapy regimen improved survival in patients with advanced bowel cancer and extended the time before tumours began to grow. However, intensive chemotherapy is likely to only be a suitable treatment for a proportion of patients with bowel cancer, because intensive chemotherapy causes a high rate of side effects. This study compares a gentle chemotherapy treatment (capecitabine chemotherapy tablets given by mouth) with the combination of capecitabine and bevacizumab and the combination of capecitabine, bevacizumab and intravenous mitomycin C. It is expected that a gentle chemotherapy treatment or a gentle chemotherapy treatment combined with bevacizumab would be an appropriate treatment for both young and fit patients as well as older and less fit patients who would not easily tolerate intensive chemotherapy.

The primary objective of the Phase I part of the study is to determine the recommended dose of capecitabine to be administered in combination with ZD1839 250 mg orally once daily in subjects with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer by assessing DLTs. The primary objective of the Phase II part of the study is to estimate the objective response rate (complete response [CR] and partial response [PR]) at study closure for ZD1839 administered in combination with capecitabine in subjects with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer using the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST).

A non-randomized phase II study to determine the efficacy and safety of the combination of Pemetrexed and Irinotecan every two weeks in metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

The purpose of this study is to find out how effective the new combination of the drugs Capecitabine (Xeloda), Oxaliplatin (Eloxatin), and Irinotecan (Camptosar) are against colon and rectal cancer. All three of these drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of colon or rectal cancer. This however is the first time that these three drugs have been combined in this schedule for the treatment of colon/rectal cancer.

Bowel function after bowel surgery is delayed (postoperative ileus)by both opiates and the surgery itself. We hypothesized that decreasing opiate use by other analgesics will speed the return of bowel function after surgery. Lidocaine and Ketamine are drugs that appear to be synergistic and do not slow peristalsis. This study is a Randomised Controlled Trial of Lidocaine Infusion Plus Ketamine Injection versus Placebo to to determine whether they will decrease opiate use and then whether decreased opiate use will speed the return of bowel function.

This study is for patients with colorectal cancer that has spread and has increased in size after standard treatments. This study is being done to find out how long it takes their tumors to grow after treatment with the chemotherapy drugs capecitabine and gemcitabine. Capecitabine is a chemotherapy drug that has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of colorectal cancer. We are adding another drug (called gemcitabine), which is approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer of the pancreas to see if the ability of capecitabine to shrink tumors can be improved by adding gemcitabine. The side effects of the combination will also be evaluated. Another purpose of this study is to measure the levels of certain substances that affect how the body reacts to the chemotherapy agents in cancer cells (in the tumor). In addition, the genes (which are the cell's blueprint for these substances) will also be evaluated in the blood.

This is a controlled study designed to compare relapse-free survival and overall survival in patients receiving UFT with those in patients receiving surgery alone. Patients will be randomly assigned to surgery alone or surgery followed by UFT within 6 weeks after curative resection. To assess treatment efficacy, data on recurrence and survival will be collected for 5 years after enrollment of the last patient. To evaluate safety, data on adverse events will be collected for 12 months after the start of treatment.Evaluations will be separately done for colon cancer and rectal cancer.

This study will assess the efficacy and safety of intermittent oral Xeloda administration in combination with irinotecan as a first-line treatment in patients with advanced and/or metastatic colorectal cancer. The anticipated time on study treatment is 3-12 months and the target sample size is <100 individuals.

RATIONALE: Monoclonal antibodies can locate tumor cells and either kill them or deliver tumor-killing substances to them without harming normal cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of monoclonal antibody therapy in treating patients who have relapsed or refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.

The purpose of this study is to develop methods for studying the effect of bodywork therapy on symptoms of fatigue in patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy.