What are the advantages of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for colon cancer

Relying solely on surgery to treat colon cancer cannot achieve the desired effect, so neoadjuvant chemotherapy has gradually emerged. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy refers to chemotherapy performed after the tumor is diagnosed, that is, preoperative chemotherapy, which belongs to the category of adjuvant chemotherapy. At present, neoadjuvant chemotherapy has become an important step in the treatment of colon cancer.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for colon cancer mainly includes: intravenous systemic chemotherapy or oral chemotherapy, transarterial infusion chemotherapy, preoperative intraperitoneal infusion chemotherapy and regional intravenous infusion chemotherapy. Among them, intravenous systemic chemotherapy is the most commonly used, followed by transarterial infusion chemotherapy.

Compared with postoperative chemotherapy, neoadjuvant chemotherapy as preoperative chemotherapy has the following advantages.

① Giving chemotherapy before the blood vessels and lymphatic vessels at all levels of the tumor are damaged can increase the concentration of local chemotherapy drugs;

② Treat clinical or subclinical micro-metastases as early as possible to reduce postoperative recurrence and metastasis;

③ Reduce clinical stage, shrink primary lesions, and increase surgical opportunities;

④ At the same time, observing the pathological examination of surgical resection specimens can help understand the sensitivity of tumors to chemotherapy drugs, facilitate the selection of postoperative chemotherapy drugs, and guide the formulation of postoperative treatment plans;

⑤ Once the diagnosis is confirmed, chemotherapy drugs are used to control the tumor, and the tumor is not allowed to grow due to preoperative preparation and waiting for surgery. Rapidly proliferating cancer cells are suppressed before surgery;

⑥ Preoperative chemotherapy can minimize the proliferation ability of tumor cells during surgery and reduce the iatrogenic spread of cancer cells during surgery.