Making sense of adjuvant chemotherapy in colorectal cancer

At diagnosis, surgical resection remains the mainstay of treatment for stage II and III colon cancers, with a 5-year overall survival (OS) of 80% and 60%, respectively. The goal of adjuvant chemotherapy is to eradicate micro-metastatic disease and improve survival. Over the last three decades, there have been multiple adjuvant chemotherapy trials conducted with the aim of improving survival. In this review, we discuss the evolution of adjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of colorectal cancer and how the evidence impacts our clinical management today