Trial in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer With FOLFIRI Plus Aflibercept as First Line Treatment

Colorectal cancer accounts for 8% of all malignant tumors in adults and is considered as a major cause of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although curative surgical resection is possible in 70-80% of patients at diagnosis, almost half of them will develop local or/and metastatic recurrence and will die of the disease with the liver been the most common site of metastatic spread from CRC. Combinations of infusional administrated 5-fluorouracil/Leucovorin with irinotecan or oxaliplatin are accepted as the mainstay of first-line treatment and have increase the median overall survival of patients with advanced CRC from 12 months to about 21-22 months. In addition, resection for colorectal metastases (mainly in the liver), has become the standard of care, for patients with limited metastatic disease confounded to the liver and currently remains the only potentially curative therapy Aflibercept, also known as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) Trap, is an angiogenesis inhibitor with a unique mechanism of action. Aflibercept is a recombinant fusion protein that consists of portions of human VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 extracellular domains fused to the Fc portion of human immunoglobulin G1. This fusion protein binds all forms of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-A, as well as VEGF-B and placental growth factor, additional angiogenic growth factors that appear to play a role in tumor angiogenesis and inflammation. Aflibercept has been shown to bind VEGF-A, VEGF-B, and placental growth factor (PlGF) with higher affinity than their native receptors. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that aflibercept can inhibit new vessel growth and tumor vascularization in tumor models.