Efficacy and safety of apatinib in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer refractory to standard therapies

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide (1). Twenty-five percent of patients with CRC have metastases which in turn have a detrimental effect on prognosis (2,3). Patients with mCRC are often treated with chemotherapeutic agents, including fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin and irinotecan; which may be combined with targeted therapy such as bevacizumab, cetuximab/panitumumab (4). After all standard treatments failing, patients may be treated with regorafenib or TAS102, but regorafenib was not approved in China until May 6, 2017 and TAS102 has not approved until now. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop an effective and safe therapeutic approach for the treatment of mCRC, especially for Chinese patients