Severe Enteropathy Among Patients With Stage II/III Colon Cancer Treated on a Randomized Trial of Bolus 5-Fluorouracil/Leucovorin Plus or Minus Oxaliplatin.

The article focuses on the development of severe enteropathy among patients with stage II/III colon cancer undergoing adjuvant therapy based on a clinical trial in the U.S. The patients were treated with weekly bolus 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin with or without oxalipatin. About 4.3% of the patients developed a syndrome of bowel wall injury (BWI) and 22 patients treated with leucovorin with oxaliplatin developed enteric sepsis (ES). There were 5 deaths due to enteropathy and 3 related to both BWI and ES.