A real-world retrospective study to evaluate the reliability of cetuximab plus capecitabine versus capecitabine as maintenance therapy in patients with RAS and BRAF wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer

The optimal maintenance therapy for RAS and BRAF metastatic colorectal cancers (mCRC) remains unclear. It is critical to evaluate the reliability of the observation group (cetuximab-capecitabine) relative to the control (capecitabine) as a treatment to maintain.In this retrospective analysis, patients with RAS and BRAF mCRC admitted to the Department of Medical Oncology, Huizhou Municipal Central Hospital, from January 2016 to October 2020 were enrolled and treated with cetuximab plus FOLFIRI as an initial therapy. Patients whose disease was controlled after at least six cycles of treatment were administered a maintenance therapy until disease progression. Analyze the prognosis of patients according to clinicopathological features. Altogether, 39 RAS and BRAF mCRC patients were recruited from January 2016 to October 2020, with 18 cases in the treatment group and 21 cases in the control group. The difference is not obvious in baseline clinicopathological features between the two treatments.The median PFS after maintenance treatment in observation group (9.5 months, [95% CI=6.4-12.6]), was significantly better than the control group (7.3 month, [95% CI=5.8-8.8]). During maintenance treatment, there were no deaths caused by treatment-related adverse events, and the overall incidence of rash acne was obviously different between the observation and control groups (p < 0.05). Most adverse events were mild and easily controlled. Primary tumor site, baseline CEA levels, and MSI status were independent prognostic factors.A maintenance therapy using cetuximab plus capecitabine improved survival in patients with metastatic CRC and is well tolerated by patients.