Sixty-day all-cause mortality rates in patients treated for gastrointestinal cancers, in randomised trials, at the Royal Marsden Hospital

• Published in: European journal of cancer (1990) Vol. 40; no. 15; pp. 2230 - 2236
• Main Authors: Katopodis, Ourania, Ross, Paul, Norman, Andrew R., Oates, Jacqui, Cunningham, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2004; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antineoplastic Agents - therapeutic use; Biological and medical sciences; Chemotherapy-related deaths; Colorectal cancer; Confidence Intervals; England - epidemiology; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gastrointestinal cancer; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - drug therapy; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - mortality; Hospital Mortality; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Oesophagogastric cancer; Pancreatic cancer; Pharmacology. Drug treatments; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - mortality; Sixty-day mortality; Survival Rate; Tumors; Vascular syndrome-related mortality; England; Oesophagogastric cancer; Gastrointestinal cancer; Pancreatic cancer; Colorectal cancer; Chemotherapy-related deaths; Vascular syndrome-related mortality; Sixty-day mortality; Antineoplastic agent; Rectal disease; Gastrointestinal; Cancerology; Blood vessel; Pancreas cancer; Intestinal disease; Clinical trial; Hospital; Pancreatic disease; Human; Mortality; Pharmacology; Malignant tumor; Colonic disease; Chemotherapy; Treatment; Digestive diseases; Death
• ISSN: 0959-8049; 1879-0852
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejca.2004.04.008

The aim of this study was to determine the 60-day all-cause mortality rate, during chemotherapy, for patients with oesophagogastric, pancreatic, and colorectal cancer. We analysed 1720 patients that were treated within randomised trials. The minimum follow-up period was >60 days. Sixty-day mortality and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) were calculated from the Kaplan–Meier survival curves. Causes of death were classified as treatment-related, disease-related or vascular syndrome-induced deaths. Patients with oesophagogastric cancer that could not tolerate a cis-platinum-containing regimens were treated with infused 5-fluorouracil (5FU) ± mitomycin-C (MMC). The 60-day mortality rate depends upon the site of the primary tumour and the disease status (adjuvant versus advanced). The rate of treatment- and vascular syndrome-induced deaths was ⩽1.8%. For patients with advanced disease, most of the early deaths were disease-related. In adjuvant colorectal cancer, one patient died within 60 days (myocardial infarction). This study provides a benchmark for assessing the safety of regimens used in these disease settings.