1. ¹Department of Surgery and Vascular Surgery, Uzsoki Teaching Hospital of Budapest, Hungary
2. ²Department of Medicine 'B', Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer 52621, Israel
3. ³Clinic of Surgery, University of Szeged, Hungary
4. ⁴Biostatistics Unit, Associazione Malattie del Sangue, Hospital Niguarda Cà Granda, Milan, Italy
5. ⁵Biromedicina First Hungarian Corporation for Cancer Research and Oncology, Budapest, Hungary
6. ⁶Clinic of Oncotherapy, University of Szeged, Hungary
7. ⁷1st Institute of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
8. ⁸Budapest Center of Onco-Radiology, Uzsoki Teaching Hospital of Budapest, Hungary
9. ⁹2nd Clinic of Surgery, University of Debrecen, Hungary
10. ¹⁰Jewish University, Budapest, Hungary

Correspondence: Dr Y Shoenfeld, E-mail: shoenfel@post.tau.ac.il

Received 21 November 2002; Revised 8 April 2003; Accepted 25 May 2003.

Abstract

MSC (Avemar) is a medical nutriment of which preclinical and observational clinical studies suggested an antimetastatic activity with no toxicity. This open-label cohort trial has compared anticancer treatments plus MSC (9 g once daily) vs anticancer treatments alone in colorectal patients, enrolled from three oncosurgical centres; cohort allocation was on the basis of patients' choice. Sixty-six colorectal cancer patients received MSC supplement for more than 6 months and 104 patients served as controls (anticancer therapies alone): no statistical difference was noted in the time from diagnosis to the last visit between the two groups. End-point analysis revealed that progression-related events were significantly less frequent in the MSC group (new recurrences: 3.0 vs 17.3%, P<0.01; new metastases: 7.6 vs 23.1%, P<0.01; deaths: 12.1 vs 31.7%, P<0.01). Survival analysis showed significant improvements in the MSC group regarding progression-free (P=0.0184) and overall survivals (P=0.0278) probabilities. Survival predictors in Cox's proportional hazards were UICC stage and MSC treatment. Continuous supplementation of anticancer therapies with MSC for more than 6 months is beneficial to patients with colorectal cancer in terms of overall and progression-free survival.