Open AccessClinical efficacy and drug resistance of anti-epidermal growth factor receptor therapy in colorectal cancer
Author(s) -
Hakan Koçoğlu,
Fatih Mehmet Velibeyoglu,
Mustafa Karaca,
Deniz Tural
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
world journal of gastrointestinal oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.924
H-Index - 26
ISSN - 1948-5204
DOI - 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i1.1
Subject(s) - medicine , kras , colorectal cancer , cetuximab , epidermal growth factor receptor , oncology , panitumumab , egfr inhibitors , cancer , drug resistance , targeted therapy , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranked third in cancer related death and its incidence has been increasing worldwide. In recent decades important therapeutic advances have been developed in treatment of metastatic CRC (mCRC), such as monoclonal antibodies against epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR), which provided additional clinical benefits in mCRC. However, anti-EGFR therapies have limited usage due to approximately 95% of patients with KRAS mutated mCRC do not response to anti-EGFR treatment. Thus, KRAS mutation is predictive of nonresponse to anti-EGFR therapies but it alone is not a sufficient basis to decide who should not be received such therapies because; approximately fifty percent (40%-60%) of CRC patients with wild-type KRAS mutation also have poor response to anti-EGFR based treatment. This fact leads us to suspect that there must be other molecular determinants of response to anti-EGFR therapies which have not been identified yet. Current article summarizes the clinical efficacy of anti-EGFR therapies and also evaluates its resistance mechanisms.