Cetuximab Plus Irinotecan in Colorectal Cancer Patients Who Progressed After Failure With Cetuximab Plus Irinotecan

Cetuximab is a manufactured antibody-antibodies are proteins that can be found circulating in your blood stream. The growth of colorectal cancer may be affected by the interaction of a growth factor known as "epidermal growth factor" (EGF) with its receptor. Cetuximab is a antibody directed against the receptor for EGF and has been shown to turn off the activity of the receptor and to stop the growth of cancer cells in many laboratory tests. Cetuximab has been recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer and who failed standard chemotherapy. Cetuximab has been shown to delay the progression of colorectal cancer when given alone in patients who have failed standard chemotherapy and when given with a chemotherapy drug called irinotecan in patients who have failed irinotecan.