Combination Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Recurrent Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

OBJECTIVES: Primary * Determine the response rate in patients with recurrent metastatic colorectal cancer treated with neoadjuvant oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, and leucovorin calcium followed by radiotherapy and concurrent fluorouracil and oxaliplatin. Secondary * Determine the overall survival and disease-free survival of patients treated with this regimen. * Determine the primary site of recurrence and time to recurrence in patients treated with this regimen. * Determine quality of life of patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: This is a nonrandomized, open-label, multicenter study. * Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: Patients receive oxaliplatin IV over 2 hours and leucovorin calcium IV over 2 hours on day 1. Patients also receive fluorouracil IV continuously over 46 hours beginning day 1. Treatment repeats every 14 days for 4 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Two to 5 weeks later, patients with stable or responding disease proceed to chemoradiotherapy. * Chemoradiotherapy: Patients receive fluorouracil IV continuously 5 days a week for 5 weeks and oxaliplatin IV over 1 hour on days 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29. Patients also undergo radiotherapy 5 days a week for 5 weeks beginning on day 1. Quality of life is assessed at baseline, 1 week after the completion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, on days 15, 30, and 42 of chemoradiotherapy, and at 1 and 2 months after the completion of study treatment. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed periodically. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 39 patients will be accrued for this study.