Translational Medicine and Oncologists Meet

Treatment of human metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) remarkably changed over the past two decades. The use of novel therapies and more complex treatment strategies have contributed to progressively increase the median life expectancy of patients up to approximately 30 months. Although traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy and newly targeted therapy are now available for use in treating patients with mCRC, the optimal treatment strategy remains unknown. Currently, therapeutic strategies for mCRC patients are based on a continuum of care whereby patients are exposed throughout the course of their disease to different active drugs, the therapy is personalized according to the need for rapid response and the burden of disease and RAS status, drugs are often reintroduced if they showed activity in previous line of therapy, and extremely importantly, maintenance chemotherapy and/or intermittent therapy are considered. Here, we review available data for the use of continuum of care strategy in mCRC, and regard it as a promising treatment strategy.