Capecitabine (Xeloda) improves medical resource use compared with 5-fluorouracil plus leucovorin in a phase III trial conducted in patients with advanced colorectal carcinoma.

Standard therapy for advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer consists of 5-fluorouracil plus leucovorin (5-FU/LV) administered intravenously (i.v.). Capecitabine (Xeloda), an oral fluoropyrimidine carbamate which is preferentially activated by thymidine phosphorylase in tumour cells, mimics continuous 5-FU and is a recently developed alternative to i.v. 5-FU/LV. The choice of oral rather than intravenous treatment may affect medical resource use because the two regimens do not require the same intensity of medical intervention for drug administration, and have different toxicity profiles. Here we examine medical resource use in the first-line treatment of colorectal cancer patients with capecitabine compared with those receiving the Mayo Clinic regimen of 5-FU/LV. In a prospective, randomised phase III clinical trial, 602 patients with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer recruited from 59 centres worldwide were randomised to treatment with either capecitabine or the Mayo regimen of 5-FU/LV. In addition to clinical efficacy and safety endpoints, data were collected on hospital visits required for drug administration, hospital admissions, and drugs and unscheduled consultations with physicians required for the treatment of adverse events. Capecitabine treatment in comparison to 5-FU/LV in advanced colorectal carcinoma resulted in superior response rates (26.6% versus 17.9%, P=0.013) and improved safety including less stomatitis and myelosuppression. Capecitabine patients required substantially fewer hospital visits for drug administration than 5-FU/LV patients. Medical resource use analysis showed that patients treated with capecitabine spent fewer days in hospital for the management of treatment related adverse events than did patients treated with 5-FU/LV. In addition, capecitabine reduced the requirement for expensive drugs, in particular antimicrobials fluconazole and 5-HT3-antagonists to manage adverse events. As anticipated with an oral home-based therapy patients receiving capecitabine needed more frequent unscheduled home, day care, office and telephone consultations with physicians. In the light of clinical results from the phase III trial demonstrating increased efficacy in terms of response rate, equivalent time to progression (TTP) and survival (OS), and a superior safety profile, the results from this medical resource assessment indicate that capecitabine treatment of colorectal cancer patients results in a substantial resource use saving relative to the Mayo Clinic regimen of 5-FU/LV. This benefit is derived principally from the avoidance of hospital visits for i.v. drug administration, less expensive drug therapy for the treatment of toxic side-effects, and fewer treatment-related hospitalisations required during the course of therapy for adverse drug reactions in comparison to patients treated with 5-FU/LV.