Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Gastrointestinal cancer

FOLFIRI—improving toxicity in first-line treatment of advanced gastric cancer

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 11, page 684 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Gastric cancer imposes a considerable health burden worldwide, accounting for ∼700,000 deaths every year. The disease is often diagnosed at advanced stages and has a poor prognosis. Many chemotherapy regimens have demonstrated efficacy in this disease, but with high toxicity. Rosine Guimbaud et al. have now shown that the combination of 5-fluorouracil, folinic acid and irinotecan (FOLFIRI), is less toxic and better tolerated than the gold-standard regimen ECX (epirubicin, cisplatin and capecitabine) in the first-line setting.

Patients were randomly assigned to receive first-line FOLFIRI followed by ECX, or ECX followed by FOLFIRI. “This treatment sequence was used to determine the best first-line therapy, and to study the efficacy benefits of second-line treatments, which were not clearly established,” explains Guimbaud. The primary end point was time-to-treatment failure (TTF).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Guimbaud, R. et al. Prospective, randomized, multicenter, phase III study of fluorouracil, leucovorin, and irinotecan versus epirubicin, cisplatin, and capecitabine in advanced gastric adenocarcinoma: a French Intergroup (Fédération Francophone de Cancérologie Digestive, Fédération Nationale des Centres de Lutte Contre le Cancer, and Groupe Coopérateur Multidisciplinaire en Oncologie) Study. J. Clin. Oncol. 10.1200/JCO.2013.54.1011

Download references

Authors
  1. Alessia Errico
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Errico, A. FOLFIRI—improving toxicity in first-line treatment of advanced gastric cancer. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 11, 684 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2014.184

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2014.184

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing