Morphological response and tumor shrinkage as predictive factors in metastatic colorectal cancer treated with first-line capecitabine, oxaliplatin, and bevacizumab.

Abstract

Morphologic response (MR) is a novel chemotherapeutic efficacy predictor of solid tumors, especially those treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibodies. Nevertheless, the importance of systemic chemotherapy MR for colorectal liver metastases (CLM) remains unclear. We aimed to evaluate the usefulness of MR as a factor associated with the therapeutic effects of chemotherapy plus bevacizumab for initially unresectable CLM cases.