Past
Despite improving median and 5-year survival in patients with peritoneal surface malignancy originating from the large bowel, a substantial proportion experience rapid disease progression after seemingly radical cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). Some of these patients have low Peritoneal Cancer Index (PCI). Various more or less fruitful attempts have been undertaken to predict outcome but, to date, reliable measures are insufficient. Among useful predictive tools are extent of peritoneal dissemination, signet cell differentiation, and colorectal peritoneal (COREP) score.1–3
Present
Our study identified BRAF mutation as a potential predictive tool in one-tenth of patients scheduled for CRS and HIPEC.4 In fact, no patients with BRAF mutation experienced long-term survival. Mutated KRAS did not influence survival in patients undergoing CRS and HIPEC. The predictive importance of BRAF mutation also remained in multivariate analysis adjusted for PCI, CCS, and signet cell differentiation.
Anzeige
Future
The present results need to be verified in an independent and larger patient sample. If BRAF mutation can be confirmed to have this poor prognosis after CRS and HIPEC, BRAF-mutated subjects may need alternative therapeutic strategies, such as systemic chemotherapy or targeted therapies with BRAF inhibitors, combined with CRS and HIPEC. The efforts to select the most suitable group for CRS and HIPEC should be continued, and even increased, in view of the results of a recent controlled trial5 where unselected patients were included.
Acknowledgements
Open access funding provided by Uppsala University.
Disclosures
Wilhelm Graf and Helgi Birgisson have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.